Comfort and Safety
by ichibanseiken
Summary: Now with a REAL ch.10! Sorry me bad - thanks Vagabondd for heads-up.. Post-Rukia arc, Byakuya and Renji are sent to investigate a reiatsu anomaly in the real world, and are forced to rely on each other's diverse skills.  Yaoi, rated M in ch 8 and 9.
1. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER 1 – "Comfort and Safety"**

Kuchiki-Taichou stood calm and expressionless, his hooded eyes observing his fukutaichou's effort. He waited…and waited…and there it was. A ball of red light materialized above Renji's outstretched palm. Size of a small orange, it wavered hesitantly and then shot off in the direction of the target. The red ball hit the wooden board with a pop, energy dissipating instantly.

"Better, Abarai-fukutaichou." His voice was level as always, uninflected with emotion but if one looked carefully, a stir of excitement would be visible in the otherwise dull, slate-gray eyes. Some members of the 6th division were exploding their targets even without an incantation. Not recruits, surely, but even recruits had a better command of kido than their lieutenant. Byakuya's eyes betrayed the tiniest hint of excitement because this time, there was a significant improvement. This time, Abarai Renji actually hit the target he aimed for.

The recruits sighed in relief. Renji straightened his shoulders with satisfaction. He did kido and nobody got hurt – not like last time, which was, after all, the reason why Kuchiki-taichou took over the 6th squad's kido practice.

"Again."

His captain's cold, smooth command carried to his ears. He allowed a breath of the brisk morning air settle in his center, then he slowly let it to escape through lips partially open, brow furrowed in concentration. Previous instructions were still ringing in his ears.

"_Ground and center. Relax and visualize. Breathe."_

Renji gathered his reiatsu, eyes closed, incantation flowing from his lips with his long, controlled exhale. He'd do better. Bigger. Stronger. He'd prove his worth to his captain… _Unworthy,_ a tiny voice whispered in his mind. _A fukutaichou who raises his blade against his taichou is unworthy…_Renji's mental landscape shifted from control grounded in breathing to images several weeks old, a vivid aftermath of his involvement in the Rukia affair. Ichimaru Gin's zanpakuto extending itself with unpredictable speed. Kuchiki-taichou's shunpo intercepting the strike intended for Kuchiki Rukia…an image of his captain lying in a pool of blood. His breathing forgotten, he felt a surge of latent anger and fear.

"Abarai!" Kuchiki-taichou's normally calm voice was tinged, very slightly, with alarm. Renji opened his eyes to see a fireball the size of a large door hover above his outstretched hand. He tried to send the ball of energy to its intended target, he nudged it, but the sphere refused to separate from him and it grew and grew –

-BANG.

XXXXXXX

Searing pain woke him. He saw the blue sky above Seireitei, his captain bending over him, gray eyes slightly widened betraying something akin to…concern? Since when did his captain feel concern for…him? For anyone?

"Abarai-fukutaichou. Keep still." Renji shut his eyes closed, not seeing a pair of slender, tekkou-clad hands and a glow of green light. He felt his pain recede somewhat. Time passed.

"He seems to have just the burns on his hands, Kuchiki-Taichou. We'll take him to the 4th."

"Dismissed until after lunch." Kuchiki-taichou turned his back on his unit, his white haori and pale scarf stirred by the wind of his passing. He could no longer stand to see the sight of agony in his fukutaichou's face, the tears of pain making their way unbidden from between the tightly shut lids, sharp teeth biting the lower lip to keep sound from escaping.

Abarai Renji's prone body, crumpled on the grass, brought forth an image of another day, another time when his lieutenant had lain by his feet.

_Unforgivable, _the Kuchiki heir's thoughts ran through well-worn channels of guilt and remorse.

_What kind of a captain unleashes his bankai on his lieutenant and almost kills him? What kind of a brother works to have his sister executed? _

The knowledge that Renji's instincts on the Rukia affair were right, and his were wrong deepened his sorrow. Renji possessed such conviction that his cause was just, such cocky confidence in his abilities, such raw courage and determination that he, however torn within, stood up to him – one of the most feared captains of Gotei 13.

Byakuya fingered the scarf around his neck. The windflower silk heirloom, passed to him by his grandfather Kuchiki Ginrei, now bore a pale stain where the blood could not be washed out. Renji's blood. Blood that was still on his hands. Byakuya didn't expect this priceless symbol of respect and high regard to come back to haunt him…yet when Abarai Renji offered the washed, repaired length of silk carefully folded in his large hands with downcast eyes, Byakuya could not refuse its return. He deserved to have his fukutaichou make this resounding act of judgment against him, his gesture spurned.

Byakuya fought to keep his shoulders from slumping, his noble demeanor unmarred by imperfection in carriage, his facial mask impassive. He could always bury his feelings in the oblivion of divisional paperwork.

XXXXXXX

Eyebrows and hairline singed, face red with burns and his hands bandaged, Abarai Renji looked at the stacks on his and his captain's desk with a familiar feeling of guilt. Kuchiki-taichou's unexpected personal involvement in basic training had the 6th division office late on paperwork – and that has never happened before

If only he wasn't such a bumbling incompetent who almost blew up one of his own recruits…if he wasn't so impulsive…if he was a faster reader and a faster writer…if he was more like Kuchiki-taichou. If he hadn't challenged his captain with his sword unsheathed. If Kuchiki-taichou wasn't severely wounded by Ichimaru Gin while …if he'd been able to fight by his captain's side instead of impotently lying on the ground…if, if, if.

He looked at Byakuya's face, seeing the tightness there. Tired shoulders forcefully pulled back as the grey eyes narrowed, weighing the papers to sign, reports to read.

"Taichou…," his voice was unsteady, hesitating. "Would you like me to make some tea?"

Kuchiki Byakua lifted his eyes to his lieutenant, noting the way the broad shoulders pulled inward as to be less visible, the glimpse of concern in downcast eyes.

_He used to meet my gaze so freely…_

He eyed Abarai's bandaged hands and suddenly felt oppressed by his subordinate's presence. Bearing witness to his pain summoned inconvenient feelings from under the surface of his impassive mask.

"No, thank you, Abarai. I shall make the tea today. Go supervise the sword drills."

As Kuchiki Byakuya disappeared into the small kitchen, he halted to feel Abarai Renji's reiatsu spike with enough force to stir the air, dislodging the topmost papers on his stacks.

These spikes came with his fukutaichou's new bankai. The formerly supressed reiatsu would occasionally flare so brightly he could feel it across Seireitei. So wild. So untamed. And untamed power was dangerous.

XXXXXXX

Yamamoto-soutaicho's voice resounded through the meeting hall.

"The team tracking down the reiatsu anomaly in Karakura needs to be able to perform reiatsu tracking and kido self-defense from a gigai, as well as navigate the World of the Living."

He looked up the rows of his captains and their lieutenants. Gotei 13 was stretched thin after Aizen's betrayal. All divisions were rushing the training of new recruits and improving the skills of experienced shinigami. The soutaichou rapped his staff against the floor impatiently.

"Remote readings using the 12th division's equipment give us only limited information. We need to identify and evaluate the risk posed by this…entity. I need volunteers."

"I can think of someone who could use a field trip," Kyoraku's lazy, almost joyful voice sounded as he moved his sekkat back on his head a little. "I suggest Kuchiki-taichou could easily do kido out of a gigai."

Kuchiki-taichou's eyes widened in alarm. He was the last person who could afford to leave for a few days.

"I must say, that's an excellet idea," Ukitake chimed in as thought the notion was new to him. "I'd volunteer to go, but my health has been an issue."

Yamamoto-soutaichou closed his eyes in thought. Moments passed before they were fixed on the pale countenance of the 6th division captain.

"Kuchiki-taichou. Do you feel able to accept a 3-day mission to the real world?"

Kuchiki Byakuya had no desire to leave his unit for a foray in a gigai. His paperwork was threatening to overwhelm the office. Intelligence information needed to be collated, recruits trained. His silence was rather protracted.

"Are you able?" the Soutaichou repeated.

"I am. However, my unit's responsibilities…I am concerned about leaving with my fukutaichou injured."

Eyes of many turned surrepetitiously toward Renji, whose blush was obscured by the red of his recent kido burns. He could lead troops, but the painful burns on his hands precluded him using either a pen or a sword.

_Useless fukutaichou. Can't do anything right._

He felt the curious stares of others, taking in his peeling face, new skin still pink and delicate, crimson eyebrows and hair slowly growing back. Only his tattoos did not change, for those were imprinted upon his very body and soul by Zabimaru.

"If I may, this could work out very well." Unohana-taichou's voice was soft and pleasant. "Kuchiki-taichou's kido expertise and Abarai-fukutaichou's knowledge of the Living World is a good combination. Abarai-fukutaichou would be of more use inside a gigai. Both can use this time to further their healing." She smiled kindly in Abarai's direction.

"Since I support the proposal, my unit can pick up some of the paperwork," Ukitake said.

"So can mine," chimed in Kyoraku, with Ise Nanao glaring at his back, knowing it would be her staying late, not her captain.

Yamamoto-soutaichou's voice resonated with satisfaction. "It's decided, then. Dismissed."


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER 2 - Comfort and Safety**

Renji got to the Senkaimon first. The nervous clench in his stomach returned with full force. Three days with his captain. He thrilled in his new chance to prove his usefulness, welcoming the responsibility for his captain's safety and comfort in living world. Renji knew his knowledge of Karakura has become fairly extensive. Still, though, feelings of inadequacy would seize him suddenly. He did his best to prepare himself for his absence, he prepared the squad's seated officers as best he could even to the point of setting out training schedules; preparing progress reports for later completion, clearing his desk of old business. As his mind turned to all the things to that could go wrong both in Seireitei and the living world, he felt a tense, seething feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Rein in your reiatsu, Abarai-fukutaichou."

Renji turned, his captain standing an arms' length behind him. He bowed, the feeling in the pit of his stomach still hot and expanding.

"Good morning, Kuchiki-taichou."

"Abarai. Your reiatsu." Byakuya looked at his lieutenant's tense face, stiff shoulders, hands still lightly bandaged. "Breathe, Abarai."

And Renji breathed. The acrid heat he felt dissipated with painful slowness. Like water pouring out of a cup, it left him through his feet and into the ground he stood on.

"Better. Could you not feel your reiatsu flaring?" Byakuya's voice indicated a question free of judgement. Renji exhaled gently.

"What reiatsu, taichou?"

Kuchiki Byakuya stood still, incredulous, finally feeling the other's energy level settled well within normal bounds. The flare did happen, he felt its oppressive flame brightness from blocks away, he even tasted the scorched cinnamon smell of the sudden energy release. Yet Abarai Renji, the originator of this unexpectedly available power source, was apparently oblivious to it.

Renji kept a corner of his eye on his captain, noting the familiar, impassive set of fine, pale features, the straight nose, black hair flowing out the kenseikan. Kuchiki-taichou remained silent and Renji reflected that if his captain wasn't expressive before the Rukia episode, he was as silent as a grave now.

_He must think I'm dirt beneath his feet._

The tight heat in his stomach threatened to rise again. Lost in his own guilt, Renji was blind to the effects of recent events on the captain he's been striving to exceed. Almost putting his sister to death; almost killing his lieutenant with his bankai; almost dying at the end of Ichimaru Gin's sword. Seeing the ryoka rescue his adoptive sister from the merciless bureaucracy, manipulated by ruthless power who betrayed all he swore to uphold. Kuchiki Byakuya's world was shaken to the core, his beliefs fractured. Where his body had lain bleeding into the soil of Soukyoku Hill weeks ago, now his spirit, already burdened by latent grief of widowhood and the weighty responsibility entwined with privilege, threatened to seep out and follow.

XXXXXXX

"Your gigai are completed," Urahara said, his satisfied invisible behind a white paper fan. "They are my most advanced model for this type of work, you know."

He sipped some tea.

"Your reiatsu signatures will be obscured, Kuchiki-taichou. We have to assume the source of the reiatsu anomaly would be able to detect you otherwise. Especially him," Urahara-san snapped the fan shut in Renji's direction. "I doubt Abarai-san will be able to do any kido out of this gigai, although he should no longer feel the burns on his hands."

Renji used both hands to help himself to some tea, his face bent down to hide his embarrassment. Very carefully, so the cup did not slide on his bandages, aware of the scrutiny of the hat-and-clogs shopkeeper, he took several sips and placed the cup back on the table.

"I must warn you, though," the shopkeeper said in his singsong voice, a smile hidden behind his fan. "To enhance the functionality of this model, the gigai is very difficult to enter and exit without expert assistance. You may be a little…stuck in there. If you get seriously injured in this gigai and cannot escape out of it, you can die." He shut his fan and fixed his shaded eyes on the two shinigami.

"And die what kind of death?" Kuchiki Byakuya asked.

"The human kind. Permanent, wait-to-be-reborn death. Not the kind where you go back to Seireitei as the shinigami you are right now. "

XXXXXXX

"Money and a credit card."

"Got it," Renji said.

"I.D.'s

"Got it."

"Maps."

"Yeah."

"Gigai first aid kit."

"Got it," Renji groweled.

"Change of clothes," Tessai read off the list.

Renji paused.

"You think we'll need it?"

Tessai growled back, his eyes obscured by black glasses.

"I got it already!" Renji snapped in frustration. He'd done enough Living World missions and didn't need to be hovered over.

"Hey dampen that reiatsu, will ya?" Tessai frowned, his eyebrows up. "Without that reiatsu-dampening gigai you'd be drawing hollow in your wake."

Byakuya made his entrance into the small room as though it was a royal palace.

"What seems to be the issue."

"We need a change of clothes," Renji said, sullen. "Other than that, we're packed."

Byakuya looked at the t-shirt and jeans clad gigai lying on the floor. He worked hard to remained impassive.

"These garments are not satisfactory."

The shop-keeper walked in behind him, clogs clicking on wooden floors.

"Surely, Kuchiki-taichou, you'll be able to select an adequate wardrobe. We are prepared for just about anything." Urahara led them to the storage room and pointed to a wall of chests and closets.

"Look in here. You may borrow whatever you like."

Two hours later, Renji was still digging hard to locate an outfit adequate for one of Byakuya's station. Yukatas and pants, kimonos and dresses, cloaks and coats, jeans and jackets, shirts and sweaters were all worn and washed numerous times and possessed a disagreeable odor of must and naphthalene.

Renji sighed.

"Taichou…we could just buy something tomorrow. I know a good place."

Kuchiki Byakuya eyed his red-haired fukutaichou. He tried so very hard. Byakuya almost said, _It's not of great importance what I wear, Abarai-fukutaichou, _then he drowned the unshed words in a quiet inhale, trying to banish the vision of his lieutenant lying on the streets of Seireitei, his red hair spilling together with is blood. Blood shed by Senbonzakura.

"Thank you, Abarai-fukutaichou. If we can spare the time."

Renji looked at his captain's face with some surprise and caught a hint of pain in those slate-gray eyes but the emotion quickly passed, displaced by an opaque void.

He watched his captain disappear through the door of the storage room, shoulders uncharacterically low.

On impulse he reached into a different cupboard and commandeered a small package the best green tea Urahara carried. He may not be much of a fukutaichou. Not after having raised his own sword against his own captain. Not after having exploded yet another kido spell. Not after falling asleep at his desk while his captain is still hard at work. There was something good he could do, though – he'd introduce his reclusive captain to at least some pleasures of the Living World, making the unpleasant business of living in a gigai more bearable. And he could still brew a mean cup of tea.

XXXXXXX

Kuchiki Byakuya, captain of the 6th division of Gotei 13 and the 28th head of the Kuchiki Clan startled when his hand was grasped and he was rudely yanked back. He pivoted to face the offending party.

"Abarai-fukutaicho." His tone was frosty, eyes glinting like dark gray ice. Renji peered at him over his expensive sunglasses.

"Sorry, taichou. Just…you need to wait for that light to turn." He pointed his chin to the semaphore across the street. Cars continued whipping by, their noise and odor unfamiliar and disturbing. "The cars won't stop until their light turns red."

"I see." Byakuya looked around, noting how other…humans…made an effort not to stare at their interchange.

_A grown man who cannot cross the street._

Byakuya became painfully aware that he drew covert glances of those around him. He extended his reiatsu, searching for any unusual presence. Their goal was to find the disturbance and identify it, but he felt nothing. Some humans had stronger reiatsu than others, but all within the expected human range.

"Taichou."

"Taichou!" He felt Renji grasp his hand and pull it again. "Lets go. The light has changed."

Byakuya let Renji pull his hand. As he monitored reiatsu levels around him, he noted several people staring at them again.

"Abarai-fukutaichou."

"Yes, taichou."

"We are attracting attention."

Renji let go of his captain as they stepped up the sidewalk. They heard a little boy say to an older woman:

"Maybe they are just playing at being soldiers, grandma."

"Tattooed men always play soldiers," the grandmother said, sliding a disapproving look at Renji. Byakuya watched her back go down the street, her grandson prancing beside her.

"They can hear us talk," he said, wonder in his voice.

"Yeah. We're sticking out like a sore thumb."

Byakuya leaned against the corner of a stone building and looked around. They were being passed by people going to and fro. Occasionally, somebody would slide an apprehensive look at Renji.

"We need to blend in, Abarai."

"Yes, tai…" Renji stopped as pale fingers pressed against his lips. Byakuya saw surprise in Renji's eyes.

"Don't call me that until we get back, Abarai." He held Renji's gazes and saw the shock turn to hurt, then, very slowly, to acceptance.

"So…if you call me Abarai, can I call you…Kuchiki?" Renji held the other's gaze, impish grin on his face. It was his turn to see shock, those gray eyes no longer opaque and dull. A glimmer of indignant anger followed, but the moment passed quickly and Byakuya twitched his eyebrows.

"Only under these special circumstances, Abarai. Our names need to be expedient. Besides," Byakuya paused, his eyes hooded and impassive once again, "you are my guide, therefore our traditional relationship needs to be temporarily altered."

Renji couldn't stay his rogue grin.

"Are you saying I'm in charge, Kuchiki?"

"I wouldn't go as far as that," Kuchiki Byakuya, the 28th head of the Kuchiki clan and the captain of the 6th division replied, a peevish note in his voice.

They sat opposite one another under a large shade tree, a nearby children's playground empty this early in the day. On the grass between them, the contents of Renji's backpack were laid out in neat piles.

"So we are supposed to use this money; the credit card is for emergencies only," Renji finished his briefing on their living world supplies.

Byakuya surveyed the items.

_Hopefully we won't need any of this. Hopefully this mission will be over by tomorrow._

His gigai felt restrictive and he could feel his unusually tight clothing chafe against it. He picked up the map of Karakura Town and unfolded it.

"Where are we, Abarai?"

Renji pointed out the pertinent orientation points. The large street they crossed. The Urahara Shoten. The Kurosaki clinic, and Kurosaki's high school.

"This is the park where we are right now. My question is, how do you plan to start searching for the reiatsu anomaly?"

Byakuya already considered the problem of being unable to shunpo in a gigai.

"We need transportation."

They discussed the pros and cons of a car for hire, bicycles, buses and trains. Something fast, and flexible…

"Abarai. What's that?" Byakuya's voice betrayed excitement as he looked over Renji's shoulder.

"What, those kids? They are riding skateboards." He looked at the widened eyes in his captain's normally passive face, the corners of his lips lifted slightly in what would be just a hint of a smile in anyone else but in Kuchiki Byakuya, it was a full-out manic grin.

"No. No way, Kuchiki. You don't know what those things are like. Not in a gigai. We'll damage ourselves and Urahara-"

"I thought you were more adventuresome than that, Abarai," Byakuya said in a dry monotone. "We will go buy some suitable garments. Then we will obtain a skateboard."


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER 3 – "Comfort and Safety"**

Kuchiki Byakuya looked himself up and down in the three-way mirror. Gray slacks, a grey shirt, black shoes and a white leather jacket lent him a rakish air. His hair was bound back in a low ponytail. A change of socks, underwear, two t-shirts and a black cashmere sweater to ward would fit in his new microfiber backpack.

"Entirely acceptable."

Renji pulled out the credit card with an air of resignation. The cash they carried wouldn't have covered Byakuya's pants. Renji's idea of clothes shopping was a lot more…downscale.

"Abarai. Select something decent."

Renji was about to protest, but the steel in Byakuya's eyes allowed no escape.

"It's not in the budget, Kuchiki."

"It certainly is. I won't walk around with a disreputable character such as yourself." Renji wasn't sure whether he only imagined a slight tug at the corner of Byakuya's mouth.

_Taichou is…funny?_

As Renji complied, his eye was drawn by colors much less subdued than those Byakuya would prefer. He could feel Zabimaru in the back of his mind, delighting at the red and black leather jacket, the green pants, the blue shirt…

"Abarai. Allow me to make a selection which will make you less…conspicuous." Kuchiki Byakuya selected a monochrome ensemble in black. One searching gaze at Renji's wistful face prompted him to include the red and black leather jacket Renji coveted so much.

Then they wrestled over other necessities.

"Really…I like this backpack. There's nothing wrong with it."

"It looks like it belonged to many young school children before you found it," Byakuya said dryly as he selected a black leather backpack.

.

Byakuya surveyed Renji some more.

"The hair." Renji flushed under Byakuya's scrutiny. "Let it down and tie it back, Abarai. Your pineapple is too conspicuous."

They paid using Urahara's credit card and left the happy sales clerks bowing at their departure.

"Urahara's gonna kill us."

Byakuya lifted his eyebrow. "I shall worry about that, Abarai."

Byakuya bought them lunch. Pleased at handling the transaction himself, he also used the cellular phone to call Urahara Shoten and report that they have not felt any wild reiatsu yet. It was a good feeling, acquiring new skills after being shown only once.

XXXXXXX

"Abarai. The skateboards." The Kuchiki heir was implacable.

"Seriously?" Renji was sprawled on the grass under a tree. Somehow, the real world felt less formal, less stifling. More like Rukongai, where fine manners and formalisms could often be dispensed with. He began lunch with his captain sitting in a polite, careful seiza but the modern shoes forced both of them to sit cross-legged within minutes, and Renji sprawled under the tree soon after that. Were he in his office, this would be the time he'd doze over his paperwork…

"We need transportation, Abarai," Byakuya said with the patience he usually reserved for Yachiru. "We cannot execute a circular search pattern on foot within out allotted time."

Renji stood up, stretched out and shook his leather jacket out, draping it over his left shoulder. "Let's go, then."

To Renji's surprise, Byakuya was a skateboarding natural. Renji could make it go and make it stop, but he didn't dare copy even the easiest tricks he saw some kids do in a nearby park. Byakuya, however, had no such reservations.

"It's like shunpo, Abarai. No problem at all," Byakuya said in his calm, smooth voice and only a glint of his eyes betrayed the joy he felt.

_Wow. Taichou is having fun. I didn't know that was possible._

Renji applied himself to practice before they set out. Their location was marked on the map and the dots, made in blue pen, moved as they described a clockwise spiral through the streets of Karakura. Byakuya got a reading or two on a stronger reiatsu, but nothing strong enough to justify their suspicion. Nothing like the wild reiatsu anomaly described by both Urahara and the 12th division remote sensors.

Shadows lengthened and the setting sun painted the sky in brilliant shades of orange and crimson, the clouds highlighted in pale, delicate pastels. Byakuya stopped. Its beauty was so wild…but it was also very passing and they both knew that it would soon be too dark to continue on their wheeled search.

"Why can't we stay at one of Urahara's bolt holes?" Renji grumbled as they approached the small hotel.

"We didn't know where we would be. He cannot possibly give us keys to all of them."

The only available room was small, its two beds narrow, only a walkway between them. The bathroom had a shower stall.

"You go first, Kuchiki. I can wait." A whole day on foot left them worn out and grubby.

Renji stretched out on his bed and waited his turn. His red and black leather jacket hung in the closet. The colors and patterns somehow reminded him of Zabimaru, and as he thought of his Zanpakuto, he could feel a stir in the back of his mind.

_Nothing. Just thinking of you._

The stirring ceased. He felt a happy, warm feeling at Zabimaru's spiritual presence. His thoughts flew back to that morning when he finally forced his way into his reiatsu-masking gigai. It looked exactly like him, yet the bronzed skin was left unmarked. As soon as he settled in the simulacrum, the tattoos began to appear on his forehead, his arms, under the gigai's old clothing. Kuchiki-taichou looked surprised, but Urahara's expression was satisfied, as though the spectacle confirmed something the shopkeeper has suspected for a long time.

"Abarai. What are these things for?" His captain's voice roused him from sleepy musings and he heaved himself out of his bed and headed to the bathroom to fulfill his duty as a guide duty to the World of the Living.

Byakuya emerged from his shower with a towel around his hips, warm and satisfied. Now they could go and have dinner – except his fukutaichou was on his bed in just his boxers, waiting for his shower…asleep.

Byakuya's eyes were drawn to the fascinating man. Yes, it was only a gigai, but a true likeness and the tribal tattoos marked Renji's forehead and neck, his arms, the intricate, jagged shapes spanned his chest and continued down his abdomen, disappearing under his boxers. The gigai bore none of Renji's scars, no witness to recent combat, no small wee network of lines inflicted by the razor-sharp beauty of Senbonzakura's shikai.

_And this is the man I almost killed. _Byakuya's throat tensed at the thought.

He noted the tendrils of hair escaping Renji's braid, so red against the white bedding. _So like his blood._

"Renji. I shall never hurt you again." Byakuya started at the sound of his own words and the sentiment he voiced in this quiet space and was relieved when Renji stirred but briefly at the sound of his name.

Pale cheeks tinged with a faint flush, he dressed quickly, sat on his own bed and shook his fukutaichou's shoulder.

"Abarai. Go shower so we can go eat." At this Renji did sit up and proceeded to the bathroom, where under the warm streams of water he pondered the words of Kuchiki Byakuya, the words he heard while his eyes were merely closed.

XXXXXXX

"Not too spicy?" Renji asked.

"I like spicy," Byakuya replied over his bowl of Randang curry. He had curry before, but not like this, not with all the bright and savory notes combined with a solid foundation of umami.

"Good…I heard you have quite a reputation for hot foods." Renji stuck to his tried and true Pad Thai.

Byakuya raised his eyebrow slightly. "I see."

And there was a world of communication in that eyebrow, and in the timbre of his voice, and Renji marveled at his ability to tell the various versions of "I see" from one another. _Says who? Not that I'd care about idle rumors…_

"Oh, lots of people know. Ukitake-taichou suggested you might enjoy this place. He and Kyoraku-taichou come here sometimes. Kyoraku-taichou recommended the wine." Renji's words spilled forth unchecked and unbidden. He watched his captain raise the wineglass to his lips and inhale softly, then taste the Gewurtzaminer again.

"I see."

_I have been set up for my own good by my old sempai…again._

Byakuya's eyes cooled off some and his expression shut down into his customary mask. _They shouldn't worry so much. A captain who'd…a man like me isn't worth worrying about much._

"Taichou…" Renji slipped into the customary title, alarmed by the raincloud in Byakuya's eyes. "What's wrong?"

Byakuya looked at his fukutaichou's open face, surprised at the distress and surprisingly, guilt, he saw in Renji's eyes.

"It's nothing, Abarai," he dismissed Renji with his customary coolness. "You have carried yourself admirably."

A chime sounded in Byakuya's pocket and he started, looking around and under the table.  
"The phone, Kuchiki."

"Ah…" Byakuya pulled the cellular telephone out of his pocket and flipped it open. It chimed again.

"Hello hello?" He said like he saw others do. Renji suppressed a smile.

"Push the green button first."

Byakuya peered at the small, black keyboard and depressed the green symbol. "Hello hello?" He repeated.

"Urahara-san. Yes, we are doing well….yes, just finishing supper…The area we have covered is – Abarai, the map."

Renji produced the map and held it unfolded over the assortment of dishes on the table, careful not to soil it with food.

"I see….I see…wait a moment, please." Byakuya set the phone down and closed his eyes. He breathed in and out several times, picked up the phone again, and said, "I see." Then he pushed the red button, folded the cell phone and slipped it into his pocket.

"Do you still need them map, Kuchiki?" Renji asked.

"Yes. Here….just about over there. That wild reiatsu is flaring up in that area right now. Now that I have felt it, I know what to look for." Byakuya waved the map away and proceeded to apply himself to his Randang curry.

"Shouldn't we go there?" Renji asked.

"No. Kurosaki was dispatched to deal with any hollow drawn to the reiatsu. There is nothing we can do, stuck in these gigai."

Renji nodded. He straightened up and closed his eyes, reached out of his gigai as much as he could and felt his way around – nothing.

"I don't feel it," he said, his shoulders drawn in a bit again, his eyes intent on the left-over, microscopic bits of noodles on his plate.

_Useless fukutaichou. Good just for finding restaurants._

He felt the hum of Zabimaru's comforting presence then and leaned back into the padded bench of their booth, eyes closed. Kuchiki Byakuya observed him from underneath his downcast eyelashes.

"You will feel it, Abarai Renji. With practice, we will find a way."

XXXXXXX

They woke up to the rumbling of trucks outside and a tepid autumn sun made its timid way into their room.

Byakuya leapt out of bed.  
"Abarai. We overslept. We need to track down that reiatsu from last night." He used the bathroom and dressed while Renji was still rubbing sand from his eyes.

"Abarai-fukutaichou."

Renji bolted out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom with much haste, crashing into the door frame with his shoulder. Byakuya suppressed a smile.

The breakfast served in the hotel was insipid. Renji watched Byakuya push the food around, his excuse of a tea untouched, impassive face betraying more than just a hint of irritation.

"Oi, Kuchiki. I'll be right back." Renji rummaged in his leather backpack, pulled out a small package, and disappeared into the kitchen. Minutes later he emerged carrying a tray with a teapot and two cups. He placed in on the table carefully and sat, pouring out the fragrant brew. He handed the first one to his captain, took the second one for himself. _I may not feel reiatsu really well…and I may have questionable judgment when it comes to pulling steel on you…but I can make one kickass cup of tea for you, Taichou._

Kuchiki Byakyua straightened in his chair, eyes wide in delight.

"Thank you, Renji." He picked up the thick-walled cup and inhaled the unmistakable, delicate fragrance of his favorite tea blend, first-flush green tea with dried sakura blossoms. _How did he know? _

Renji sipped the tea slowly, trying hard not to get caught staring at his captain's face. _He's amazed, _he thought, his heart flooded with warmth. _He loves having his tea. And he called me Renji._

XXXXXXX

A quick trip to the other side of Karakura brought them to a public soccer stadium.

"Are all trains this crowded?" Byakuya asked once they struggled their way from the commuting hell where body was pressed to body and air was recycled through hundreds of mouths and noses with every breath. He didn't say he didn't like it, for admitting a like or a dislike could be construed as a weakness.

"No…just in the morning and evening. People go to work and back home that way." If Renji's answer sounded dubious, it's because this was his first train ride as well. He only heard about trains from Inoue Orihime. He knew to buy tickets, and to have them punched, and to use the map and find out where they were going. He felt a sudden wave of gratitude to his ryoka friends for their patience in showing him around.

Renji felt no sign of the wild reiatsu at the soccer stadium, but it was clear the stadium was used the night before. Staff in orange jackets was busy emptying garbage cans into a small run-around. Men were sweeping the wide sidewalks and taking down obsolete posters.  
"Excuse me. May I have one of those?" Renji asked an older man with a stack of old posters in his hand.

"Ah, another Gabriel fan, I see." The man smiled. "What a magician. You would almost swear the tricks he does are for real."

Renji filed the information away. "What was going on here last night?" He asked casually.

"Why, this show! The poster's advertising this show by Gabriel! And Gabriel came and did great magic tricks!" The older man looked at Renji with confusion. "I thought you knew of him. I thought you were a fan."

Renji looked at a poster showing a face of a man with long blonde hair, age indeterminate, straight nose and wide eyes prominent in his face.

"Will he be performing tonight?" Byakuya asked.

"No, no…he does a string of shows in various cities. He's big-time, you know. Travels the whole world.

Byakuya took off down the sidewalk. Renji followed. When they were alone again, he leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. Few moments passed. "The residual reiatsu matches the one I felt last night. He's gone, though."

A magician. What could a reiatsu user do to draw a crowd of many thousands and make them pay an admission fee?

They decided that Gabriel could be anywhere. Following the spiral search pattern to locate a moving target wasn't necessarily a good idea…all they could do was allow Byakuya to keep his senses alert and hope for the best.

XXXXXXX

An hour later, Byakuya was fit to be tied as Renji hunted up and down the isles of a large store, a long list in his hand.

"Abarai. Tell me again why you have to do this."

Renji swallowed, somewhat embarrassed. "I promised Rukia I'd bring back some of those juice boxes she likes so much. And with her still recovering her strength an'all, I'd really like to bring her something nice. Then Rangiku heard about it and asked me for a hair conditioner and some other things, and Unohana-taichou gave me a list of little things from the first aid section to bring back so she can try them out. Yachiru wants candy called PopRocks, and Ise Nanao requested a –"

"Abarai."

"…"

"Why do you do this, Abarai?" Byakuya seemed truly interested in his underlying reasons.

Renji sighed. "Well for Rukia is because she's m' friend, but for the others I get a 10% fee on top of the purchase price."

"Is that much money for you, Abarai?"

Renji's pride stirred. Kuchiki probably didn't know the meaning of the word "budget". He never had to live on the streets, stealing food and water for so he and his friends could survive. He wasn't, after all, a dog from Rukongai with street smarts and street grit.

"Not that you'd care," he said huskily, his throat tight and his eyes defiant. "That ten percent allows me to buy things I couldn't otherwise. Like gifts for my friends. Taiyaki. Sake. Sunglasses. Things you'd take for granted."

Byakuya saw more in his fukutaichou's hurt, defiant eyes than he could ever hear in his words. There was determination and self-reliance there, and strength. A refusal to yield to anyone or anything that would stand in the way of his autonomy. Not even him.

_From the roofs of Seireitei to the paved streets of Seireitei. They stood off and Renji, his own fukutaicho, barred his way. Then he was there, lying on the street, his crimson hair spilling unbound, mingling with the crimson blood Byakuya spilled to uphold a law that was twisted, deformed. _

Renji met his captain's gaze and reeled at the depth of sorrow in those deep, grey eyes. Sorrow for what? Renji's childhood?

"Taichou…"

"Abarai…"

They looked away from one another, both full of emotion and at loss at what to do with it.

_And this is the man I drew steel on. My taichou. I never knew he could feel…feel bad about anything. Feel good about anything. _

Renji felt an overwhelming sensation of warmth in his cheeks, a flush that shot all the way down to the nervous tightness in his belly…

"Abarai!"

Renji jerked his head up.

"Dampen your reiatsu. Now." Byakuya's eyes were wide, the expression Renji associated with dire emergencies. He breathed. Ground and center. Breathe in, breathe out. The flush slowly dissipated, the searing energy drained like spilled sake absorbed by sand under his feet.

"But…Kuchiki. I am in a gigai." Renji's voice felt weak, standing in the middle of the store in the living world, a shopping cart full of items for the Shinigami Women's Association. His reiatsu-shielding gigai should have prevented any…leaks. Flares.

Byakuya's cell phone chimed. Renji watched him answer it, carefully flipping it open and pushing the green button with precision normally relegated to calligraphy. His idle smile was wiped off his face by the alarm he saw in his captain's face .

"No, I assure you this wasn't it. The flavor of this reiatsu was entirely different. Perhaps your instruments are misreading it."

He hung up and looked at Renji.

"The 12th division instrumentation just picked up your reiatsu flare."


	4. Chapter 4

_**Hi there, and thank you for reading! Those of you who bookmarked and faved this fic, I thank you. Comments and suggestions are much appreciated. If you see something wrong, let me know! Positive comments are pleasant…negative ones are constructive, especially for next time. Enjoy…**_

**CHAPTER 4**

"Abarai. We cannot follow our prey with that bag of purchases."

Renji gauged the level of patience in his captain's face. The carved, pale ivory features were impassive as always, but there was no tension, no sign of irritation…yet. He risked it.

"Tai…Bya..." He bit hid lip as his captain's eyebrow arched quizzically at the slip of his name. "Kuchiki." Renji corrected himself again, noting how his captain's given name threatened to roll off his tongue. "Rangiku-san gave me instructions regarding this matter."

They consulted the map, following it to the main train station. Byakuya steeled himself against the onslaught of pressing flesh within. They walked through the large doors – to Byakuya's relief the off-hours train station did not immerse them in another commuter-hell experience.

Renji hoisted the duffel bag with all his purchases into a metal cubicle, shut its door, and removed a key bearing a stamped number.

"This number on the key's the same as on the locker," he told Byakuya. He stowed the key into his wallet carefully.

"What if you lose the key?"

"I dunno…a kido blast oughta take care of one of these doors…"

"Abarai."

Renji looked at his captain's face just to catch a ghost of an upturned corner of the mouth.

"Let's have lunch early so we can come up with a new strategy." And Kuchiki Byakuya turned on his heel and proceeded out of the station, leaving his fukutaichou to follow.

Stalls serving street food surrounded the station and Renji was happy to locate his favorite food ever: tayaki. Byakuya quietly observed Renji's anticipatory vibrations of excitement, watching the vendor fill fish-shaped molds with batter and filling. "You want any?" Renji turned to his captain.

Infected by his fukutaichou's enthusiasm, Byakuya inclined his head slightly.

They straddled a backless bench to share a tray as the last of the orange leaves falling whirled in a gusts of chill wind.

"These have sweet bean paste. The ones over here are savory – ground pork. That's what the hot sauce is for." Renji waited for Byakuya to make first selection. Byakuya tried a pork-filled fish shape, dipped it in a hot sauce which he knew would hide a multitude of sins, and bit the head off.

Renji waited some more. Byakuya's eyes were closed in consideration until he came upon a verdict.

"Most satisfactory, Abarai." Renji's sigh of relief was not lost on his captain as he reached for his sweet tayaki. He bit off its head, eyes dimmed in pleasure.

"Ah, they're best when made fresh…" Renji bit off more and the still-hot filling escaped the fish that contained it. Byakuya watched with barely concealed fascination as the sticky sweet oozed down Renji's thumb, threatening his wrist and the cuff of his red leather jacket.

"Oh. Oh no. Not the jacket!" Renji cursed, his left hand ripping the cuff snaps open, undoing the buttons of his shirt and pushing all fabric and leather toward his elbow.

"I should have brought napkins," Renji said with a note of apology as the sweet bean filling reached his tattoo. With a decisive, single-minded gesture he licked his forearm.

Byakuya wanted to say something, anything, but his eyes were glued to the pink, pointed tongue of Abarai Renji, to the swift action with which he lapped the sweet filling off the sensitive skin of his wrist, the way he sucked his thumb clean.

Renji would have made a flippant remark had it not been for the fact that his taichou's eyes were quickly downcast and a faint blush colored his cheeks.

_Unacceptable,_ Byakuya thought, focusing on his breath going in and out, his center slowly regained. _My thoughts shall not wander in that direction. _

Renji saw the conflict in Byakuya's face and his heart thrilled to it.

"Will you try one of the sweet ones? It's delicious," he said in a low purr, not even knowing where _that_ voice came from. Deadpan, Byakuya accepted a sweet tayaki and ate it, not spilling a drop. He was bewildered to detect a sense of disappointment in his fukutaichou's eyes.

"What is it, Abarai."  
Renji startled. "Ah…no…I will just have to learn to eat as neatly as you do."

Kuchiki sighed. "And I will have to learn to enjoy everything as much as you do. It seemed like you had a lot more fun with yours."

Their eyes met, Renji's reddish warmth meeting the gray eyes of Kuchiki Byakuya, eyes that were no longer opaque and cold.

_I want to see warmth in his eyes again, _Renji thought, the guilt of raising his steel against his captain slowly becoming lighter, more bearable.

Byakuya luxuriated in the darkened, simmering gaze of the man opposite him_. _

_So warm. So alive._

And as soon as he realized the train of his thoughts his eyes turned cold, opaque slate once again.

_These feelings…must stop._

It happened so fast. One moment, they sat eating lunch and there was something pleasant, something new, in the air between them. Without warning Byakuya straightened in alarm, his lunch forgotten. Gray eyes unfocused as he raised himself off the bench and turned in the direction of the train station door.

XXXXXXX

"Abarai. The reiatsu."

Backpacks and skateboards in hand, they launched for the door, Byakuya feeling his way through the thin crowd, across the expanse of the hall, down the amazing moving staircase and toward one of the trains. He walked swiftly from one train car to another all the way down the platform, then turned around and backtracked.

"In here."

Their eyes met, the necessity of their action immediate. No chance of retreat.

Byakuya mounted the steps leading to a small folding door of the train car. Renji followed.

The train car looked different from the commuter hell they were subjected to earlier, partitioned into sections with several seats each.

"Let's walk through and find out," Byakuya said quietly. They made their way past several free compartments; in the fourth one they felt a strong reiatsu signature.

Renji lifted his eyebrows in question. Byakuya nodded.

"Maybe we could sit here," Byakuya said in his cool, velvety voice as Renji opened the door. Four men sat in comfortable seats. Two strong-looking ones were dressed in suits and sat by the door. An old man sat by the window, his eyes on a checkered board. His chess partner was tall and somewhat younger; his long, blond hair spilled over the shoulders of a casual sweater and as he focused on the game, his reiatsu increased.

The two men in suits rose to face them, their watchful eyes on their attire, drawn by Renji's tattoos.

"This section is reserved," the taller one said.

"I see. Pardon my intrusion." Byakuya's voice was smooth, calm. His eyes glanced over to the chessboard.

"Interesting position," he said, the corners of his mouth curved up into a rare smile.

The blond man turned his head to meet his eyes.

"You play?"

"Yes. But don't let me disturb you. We'll seat ourselves over there." Byakuya inclined his head in the direction of the empty seats they just passed – the unreserved section.

The blond man nodded to him amicably. "Would you feel like a game later?"

"Perhaps," Byakuya replied. The two suits kept standing until Byakuya closed the door again.

Renji found seats in the open section which lacked the privacy of doors, but gave them a good view of the reserved compartment's closed doors.

"Good," his captain replied absently. "This way, they won't get off the train without us."

"Kuchiki. We don't have a ticket…and this train feels expensive."

"We'll be fine, Abarai." His eyes were pensive as the train began to move. "All we have to do is find that man's identity."

Renji looked out the window at the tidy platforms. People stood on painted lines waiting to board their trains, other arrivals spilled out and headed off with a natural sense of purpose. There were so many of them. Among so many people, there was only one with a strong reiatsu and he could be felt miles away. And yet, sheer coincidence allowed them to find him.

Renji pulled the Gabriel show poster out of his backpack and unfolded it. He passed it to Byakuya,.

"Kuchiki, was that the Gabriel man they talked about at the stadium, you think?"

"I believe so."

"We had no strategy and yet here we are," Renji grinned.  
Byakuya raised his eyebrow. "Perhaps you had no strategy. Do not feel obliged to include me." Renji saw the corner of his mouth tug.

"C'mon, Byakuya, this is all a sheer coincidence. We are just plain lucky."

"Abarai-fukutaichou." Byakuya's eyes became opaque, cold grey again and Renji realized that he called his captain by his given name…again.

"Sorry. Kuchiki." He bent his head a little. "It's so odd, I still want to call you taichou by force of habit."

"I know, Renji." Byakuya said absently, his voice somewhat softer than before.

The train swayed smoothly over the tracks. Renji leaned his head against the neck pillow. Byakuya watched his eyes close, forehead smooth underneath its tattoos, red hair pulled into a neat braid and tucked under his leather jacket. He watched Renji's brow furrow in his sleep occasionally, the strong red lips lush and slightly parted. _So alive. _Byakuya felt the wild reiatsu of Gabriel pulse nearby, yet when he focused, he could detect a thrumming of Renji's reiatsu as well. Not very strong, but there. He allowed himself a frown. Did Renji's gigai no longer shield him? Or did he dream of something unpleasant, which would make his reiatsu flare and give them away?

Unwilling to risk exposure, Byakuya put his hand on Renji's shoulder.

"Abarai. Wake up, Abarai."

"Hmm." Renji's eyes barely cracked open, surprised to see his captain lean over him, compensating for the mild movement of the train.

"Dampen your reaitsu, Abarai."

Renji felt a warmth rise in his belly at the touch. A strand of Byakuya's hair escaped his hair tie and fell forward, almost tickling Renji's cheek. Byakuya saw Renji, still half asleep, lean toward the errant strand of his raven hair and he felt Renji's reiatsu increase, a tendril reaching toward him.

He slapped his fukutaicho's cheek.

Renji's hand flew to his face. Now wide awake, his eyes were wide, incredulous.

"Abarai. Remain alert. Your reiatsu is leaking while you sleep."

He considered the hurt in Renji's eyes.

"I…apologize. Rousing you in this manner was expedient."

The train pulled into the station. Abarai and Byakuya followed the four strange men up the escalator, hidden in a crowd of strangers. The wild reiatsu was dormant; they had to rely on visual contact. At the end, Renji walked to a ticket counter and paid their train fare.

"Oh, pardon me," Byakuya said as he ran into one of Gabriel's guards in a moment of feigned clumsiness. All four stopped to face him; Byakuya stooped to pick up his back-pack off the polished granite floor and raised his eyes to Gabriel's with surprise.

"I think we have met."

Gabriel considered Byakuya from underneath his pale eyelashes. Suddenly the air became thick with tense, wild reiatsu and Byakuya tightened his defenses as he felt a tendril of power probe in his direction.

"What is your name, if you think we met?" the blonde asked.

"Kuchiki Byakuya is my name. I am a calligrapher." Byakuya inclined his head in artistic affectation and dropped his eyes in an effort at modesty.

"A fellow artist, I see. Perhaps you saw one of my shows? I am Gabriel. I am a magician." The blonde man smiled an ageless, otherwordly smile and added, "I'll be performing here in Nagoya for a few days. Maybe you'd care to come."

Only the steel Kuchiki control kept Byakuya from starting in surprise. Nagoya? They expected to be somewhere in Karakura.

He inclined his head inclined. "I'd be pleased. Where do you perform?"

"It's all in here," said the older man who played chess on the train, and handed Byakuya a flyer. They bowed to one another and the party of four turned around and left just as Renji arrived.

"Kuchiki." Renji was breathless, his countenance pale. "Guess where we are?"

Byakuya allowed a sigh to escape. "Nagoya. I just found out."

"Well, cap'n, I am supposed to be your guide an'all but I don't know a thing about Nagoya. I didn't know a train could take us to another city…sorry about that."

"Let's just follow them, Renji."

"This is most fortunate," Byakuya said later, pleased. "The man is a magician, and we will see a magic show tonight."

Renji nodded. "Oi, Kuchiki," he said after they walked for a few minutes, loosely following the blonde man and his escort. "I spent a lot of money on those train tickets. We don't have much left."

Byakuya studied his fukutaichou's expression. The face was set, the normally confident amber eyes belied…fear? And then, bit by bit, understanding dawned as tidbits of details of Renji's Rukongai existence floated to the forefront of Byakuya's memory. His fukutaichou, a man braver than most who backed down from no one, not even from his widely respected captain's feared bankai, knew fear. Their depleted cash fund brought back so much of his Rukongai past. Suddenly, proud Renji's willingness to run errands for the Shinigami Women's Associantion for a ten percent profit made sense. Not breaking eye contact, Byakuya nodded. "Let's find a hotel. Then we'll discuss our options."

He noted Renji's raised eyebrows and allowed himself a small sigh.

"Abarai. Trust me."

Renji nodded, his eyes suddenly downcast, mind and heart in turmoil.

_You invited me into your world, taichou. Let's just hope I won't have to invite you into mine._

"The tickets are all sold out." Renji's said as he returned to their plush hotel room.

Byakuya's eyes widened in surprise, the mask of calm on his face otherwise unperturbed. "Impossible. There must be somebody willing to sell to a higher bidder."

Renji scowled. "Yeah. There are these guys called 'scalpers' outside of the arena, and their tickets cost more than this room for one night."


	5. Chapter 5

_**Hi everyone, this chapter is the meat behind poor Renji's quest for better kido control. Let's see if it works. Again, thank you all who marked or faved this story or (GASP!) left comments **____** Enjoy…**_

**CHAPTER 5**

Renji made tea. He didn't like tea particularly, but the familiar motions of tea preparation calmed his ragged nerves. The astringent aromatic of the pale chartreuse brew evoked familiarity and routine. This small comfort still did not allow him to disregard the pale form crumpled on the floor.

_It's just his gigai._ Renji placed the tea tray onto the low wooden table.

_It's just a mission. We're allright. No hollows. No combat. We're healing up._

The pale liquid cooled in the cup untouched. Renji hated feeling so edgy, left behind, useless. His captain's words resonated in his mind.

"_I am able to conceal my reiatsu, Abarai. You are not." _

Kuchiki's crumpled gigai did little to relax him. Renji gave in. He hoisted the limp form over his shoulder and deposited it onto the huge bed. It looked…uncomfortable. With a sigh he pulled the gigai further up and bolstered its head with a soft pillow. Ye no matter how much he adjusted its arms and legs, the simulacrum lacked the customary poise and grace.

XXXXXXX

Byakuya's reiatsu was carefully concealed. He was perched on a railing separating the first row from the podium in the middle of the arena. Invisible to humans, he tightly restrained his power to conceal himself from others as well. His shihakusho was unadorned with either captain's haori or his scarf, his hair flowing free of his kenseikan. If he was recognized for a shinigami, no need to broadcast his level.

Reiatsu thickened on stage as Gabriel concentrated spirit particles under his feet. He stepped to the edge of a waist-deep, transparent water container. Byakuya watched the magician place his right foot over the water surface as though in hesitation, then he shifted his weight onto it fully. The audience gasped. The tall, blond man took another step, levitating directly over the water's surface, then another and another. His posture was relaxed, face downcast, his hair flowing to his chest. He crossed the expanse of water and mounted a step on the other side, gracefully bowing to the sound of cheering, clapping and outcries of amazement.

The lights darkened to disguise a change of props and new music sounded as much of the wild reiatsu dissipated. Byakuya watched and analyzed, fascinated. Here was a soul who felt vaguely human, in an authentic human body, yet he could work kido well enough to make his tricks appear as clever illusions. Even better: he performed real slight-of-hand, human tricks, supplementing only some of them with his kido skills. Which would explain why his reiatsu was concealed most of the time, and why there was almost no increase in hollow activity.

Only two hours later, Gabriel was taking his final bows on stage and Byakuya realized with a sense of unease that he could have left much earlier. Renji might, conceivably, be concerned.

_Renji, worried? How did that thought arise?_

As Byakuya's thoughts strayed to his fukutaichou and their curiously strained relationship, some of his tightly leashed reiatsu slipped out. Gabriel's head snapped in Byakuya's direction. Seeing him perched on the railing, watching and clapping with the rest of the audience, he smiled…and winked.

XXXXXX

Furious at giving himself away, Byakuya bounced from building to building, his feet touching both traditional tile roofs and modern steel and glass. He burst through the hotel wall and into their hotel suite only to be assaulted by the unfamiliar sound of television. Renji's prone form was curled on the too-short sofa, fast asleep. He clutched his red and black leather jacket to his chest with his large hands and his brow was furrowed, his mouth tight. Byakuya's hard, steel-gray eyes softened at the sight.

He found his gigai after a brief search; comfortably lying down on a large bed, head propped up by a pillow while his fukutaichou camped out on the sofa. Bemused, he observed that his gigai was carefully arranged in comfortable repose.

_Why do those small gestures touch me so. He was even waiting up with tea prepared. _

Byakuya allowed himself a small, bitter smile. It was only duty, duly performed.

But now he had a more immediate problem: to reenter his gigai so he could rouse his sleeping fukutaichou. Byakuya recalled the difficulty of getting out of the gigai to begin with – it took a good hour of meditation to gently slip its grasp. Yet now, hovering above it, he felt no resistance; his spirit body descended into the gigai smoothly and as Byakuya resumed his existence in the living world he didn't know whether he should rejoice at his victory, or be dismayed at inadvertently breaking the protections which so effectively shielded his reiatsu up till now.

"Abarai. Abarai, wake up." His elegant hand moved Renji's hair off his face, stroked the smooth silk hair. The loose crimson strands haunted him with a memory of a different time and place.

_Renji's loose red hair mingled with Renji's blood, the critical wounds dealt directly and deliberately._

His heart tightened in sorrow. He leaned and kissed his forehead gently, just barely touching.

_Why do I do these things? I feel so…confused._

Renji dreamt of his hair being caressed by a strong, gentle hand, but it was a tendril of familiar reiatsu associated with a soft touch to his brow which made him open his eyes.

"T…taichou…" His captain's face was so close to his, his hand caressing his hair. Renji's senses were awash in the astringent, clean smell of green tea and sakura blossoms and his eyes threatened to close again at the safe, soothing sensation.

Their eyes met; Renji's dark amber caught in a sleepy moment shining with adoration and Byakuya's steel gray brimming with pain and regret.

"I am so sorry, Renji."

Byakuya leaned his forehead against Renji's and Renji felt a hot, wet something fall down his cheek. "I am so very, very sorry."

"Why?"

Renji's voice was quiet, shocked into calm acceptance by the unprecedented emotion in Byakuya's voice.

"I…almost killed you."

"When?"

"…back then..." Byakuya straightened up and sat back on his heels, his composure finally materializing, his impassive mask almost back in place when Renji said, his voice heartfelt, "I am sorry, too."

"What for?"

"For drawing my sword...against you." Byakuya observed the mood of Renji's eyes turn from pleasure to pain, from sleepy relaxation to paralyzing guilt. Byakuya sensed a violent increase in spiritual pressure threatening to spill forth and sudden understanding dawned on him. His fukutaichou's awful clumsiness, his disastrous explosions, the way he'd shrink his large shoulders into himself to disappear…guilt and self-loathing, together with the power increase accompanying his bankai. A disastrous combination.

_He doesn't hate me anymore._

Byakuya extended his hand to stroke the red hair once again.

They remained like that until the pain in Renji's eyes was replaced by a semblance of peace. Byakuya pulled his hand away and was frustrated by an inconvenient emotion, a curious pain of parting.

_What's wrong with me…?_

"We both did what we believed we had to do, right or wrong," Byakuya finally said, his voice level and smooth, iron control regained. "All we can do is learn from it and not do it again."

As Renji listened to Byakuya's voice, he felt a burden of guilt slowly lifting, perhaps even forgiveness granted, affection extended from the most unlikely source imaginable. He realized a curious warmth spread through his body, a sense of light happiness in his heart and a burning desire in his belly reaching through his extremities, his center…

"Renji, dampen your reiatsu!" Byakuya felt the flare build up together with the changing feelings in his fukutaichou's eyes and his own eyes widened in surprise at its magnitude.

Renji's lids closed as he began his breathing exercises. Once the flare diminished somewhat, Byakuya asked,  
"Renji. Think back. Right before your reiatsu flare, what were you thinking of?"

Renji's eyes opened in shock and he looked at his captain. _What was I thinking of…I was thinking of Kuchiki Byakuya, and the way his hair wants to fall into his face, and the way he seems to care for me, and the way his smell reminds me of sakura and green tea…and the way his warm hand stroked my hair…and the way his lips look so soft and sensuous…and that I no longer hate him…_

The same curious warmth suffused his body again and he felt like he would float on air – and the air in the room was beginning to stir into a breeze –

"Abarai-fukutaicho!" Sharp, cold, clipped words brought him back to earth.

"Tell me what you were thinking of right now. That reiatsu spike was…impressive." There was steel in his captain's voice as well as in his eyes.

Abarai Renji's normally bold eyes turned away.

"Abarai."

He shook his head. "I can't talk about it."

_I won't tell you because you would hate me for it. _

Byakuya observed Abarai Renji's downcast eyes, his cheeks flushed, and relented.

"We'll approach it differently then. Abarai, look at me."

Recognizing a command, Renji straightened up and met his captain's eyes. They held no judgment, only calm.

"I want you to feel your center. Here, let's do these basic centering exercises together."

An hour later Renji was covered with a sheen of sweat and not a bit of reiatsu was leaking out of his gigai.

"Every time you feel the physical sensations you felt before, whatever they might be, I want you to ground and center, just like this. I want you to practice it constantly. Nothing is to distract you. Not a fight, not me being in a fight. Not feelings, whether positive or negative." His calm, grey eyes sank deep into the amber eyes of his lieutenant, flat with exhaustion. "I want you to ground and center. Always."

"Yes, Kuchiki-taichou." Renji's voice was spent.

"Go shower and change for dinner, Abarai. I'll call Urahara-san and give him my report. We'll be taking a train back to Karakura tomorrow."

After Renji disappeared into the bathroom, Byakuya picked up the cellular phone and pressed the number for Urahara Shoten. The phone, unfortunately, was dead.

XXXXXXX

They shared a semi-private nook in a small restaurant nearby. Renji purposefully turned empty wine glass as the candlelight caught on the crystal, dancing on the white tablecloth. Byakuya had been to nice restaurants, of course, but only in Seireitei, and those were Japanese. He looked up to Renji.

"It is my understanding that you know a lot about the living world," he said in a quiet, smooth voice. "Just what is it we are expected to do now?"

Renji racked his memory for anything, anything at all that might apply to this particular situation. Ichigo never went out to places like these. He'd go out to dance clubs or local food joints where the fluorescent lights illuminated every single smudge of dirt on the floor.

"Ichigo an' I, we never go to places like these," Renji admitted. "The menu has no prices on it." His brows furrowed in concern, accentuated by his tattoos.

Byakuya allowed a small sigh to escape. "We'll use Urahara-san's credit card again."

"He'll be spitting-mad about all the expenses, y'know." Renji blurted out, knowing the shopkeeper gave nothing away for free. His taichou was unaffected by Renji's concern.

"I always intended to settle my account for our purchases with Urahara-san." Kuchiki Byakuya's eyes were hooded discreetly yet he missed nothing – not the faint blush on his travelling companion's cheeks, nor the way he discreetly stroked his red leather jacket. He held back a smile.

When the black-clad waiter appeared with his writing tablet, Renji looked at him with more confidence than he felt, and heard Ichigo's words come out his own mouth.  
"We have never tried your place before. What would you recommend?"

And that's how they sat through a long, elaborate tasting menu of various small courses, each accompanies by a different glass of wine. The slow pace of service left room enough for conversation; the unusual courses provided an easy topic.

Somewhere between the lobster bisque and a radicchio, walnut and pear salad, Byakuya was startled from their second glass of white wine by an out-of-the-blue question.

"Do you really forgive me? For pulling my sword on you?" There was obstinate bravado behind Renji's muted voice, an in-your-face defensiveness against an answer he was sure he was not going to like but needed to hear regardless. Byakuya raised his eyes to his dining companion, his cheeks slightly flushed.

"I thought I already made that clear, Renji."

"…"

"Yes. I already forgave you. "

Renji's expression softened. "Kuchiki…"

"Perhaps it is time you forgave yourself."

Much later - somewhere between the ostrich in fig sauce and dessert - Renji was surprised to hear Byakuya clear his throat some. He reached his slender hand toward Renji's larger one. "Renji." Byakuya's cheeks were flushed pink and his eyes, no longer an opaque slate gray, shone like molten silver. "You know that I don't make promises anymore…but… I shall strive to never hurt you again." The warmth of his touch sank comfortably into Renji's, and as he held his gaze, unable to tear himself away from those amazing, liquid grey eyes, he felt the now-familiar warmth originate in his center and spread outward, toward Byakuya and beyond and he felt…_Care. Affection. Trust. Admiration…and…desire? _

"Ground and center, Abarai." The moment was broken with Byakuya's hand drawing back to their sixth wineglass and Renji diverted his attention to what he now knew was an emerging reiatsu flare. He closed his eyes to breathe, focused on his center, and felt the power drain into the ground under his seat.

"I do not like sweets," Byakuya said. dipping his spoon into the dark mass experimentally. Renji watched in rapt fascination as Byakuya's eyes closed, and after a time he repeated the process, a strange, far-away look on his face.

"This is…intriguing."

Renji flashed his wide, crooked grin at his captain. "Everybody seems to love chocolate, Kuchiki." Especially cayenne-laced dark chocolate mousse, paired with a snifter of a heady liquoir the color of Renji's eyes.

Dessert was almost done when a waiter arrived with two fluted glasses of pale yellow, bubbly liquid. "A gentleman is sending you these, with his compliments."

Renji stuck his head outside of their half-hidden alcove and looked around. "Where is he?"

"Oh, you can't see him. He is in another nook, right down this way."

Kuchiki Byakuya rolled the new drink on his tongue. Renji did the same. "Tastes like soda…but better," he commented, his movements languid.

Byakyua extended his reiatsu and felt a familiar presence, more human than shinigami.

_A tall man with pale hair, walking on water._

Renji watched in rapt fascination as his captain, who always wore an impassive mask of absolute control and was never known to smile or frown, grimaced.

"It's him. Our wild reiatsu. I told you he saw me at his show, and now he knows we're here. We may as well go meet him." Kuchiki Byakuya's cheeks were faintly flushed and his normally prim and straight shoulders were…relaxed?

"Taichou…" Renji's voice was a quiet hiss. Byakuya straightened at hearing his title.

"Are you drunk?"

Byakuya fixed Renji with a baleful eye. "If I am, it's your fault, fukutaichou. You picked the restaurant." Then he proceeded to stand up, carefully adjust his balance with a glass of champagne still in his hand and tracked the trail of that unusual reiatsu to a nook four tables away. Drink in hand, Renji followed.

Kuchiki Byakuya, regardless of his state of inebriation, was a creature of grace. He moved languidly, his balance feline, and he would never think to skip proper introductions. This is why, Renji reflected, his captain wasn't entirely suitable for undercover work.

They sat at Gabriel's nook, hidden from common view, sipping his champagne while he finished his dinner.

"As I was saying," Gabriel said between bites, "I recognized Abarai's reiatsu on the train as the one I felt in Karakura." He patted his thin lips with a napkin. "There is usually some kind of a representative who checks on me, makes sure I don't do anything inappropriate. Take Japan, for instance. It's you shinigami who patrol this area. When I go to North America, I answer to the local tribe shamans and their spirits."

He wore an air of resignation.

"I am accustomed to being monitored and questioned. Although…" he paused and looked at them quizzically. "I really don't understand why you didn't approach me in your natural form."

Byakuya raised his eyebrow. "And reveal ourselves? In case you aren't aware, we are having certain…local problems. We didn't know if you might have been with the other side."

Gabriel sipped his champagne. Some time elapsed before he said, "I have already been approached by Aizen Sousuke. No, I am not on either side. I am just an entertainer of the human world." He smiled gently. "If I entangled myself in every local feud, I'd be a wanted man world 'round. It's hard enough to do what I do. Although, people have become more tolerant. Nobody wants to burn me at stake anymore."

"Just how old are you, Gabriel-san?" Renji asked in his customary, direct way.

Gabriel smiled. "I am older than the two of you combined. I have been called many names over the ages; there is nothing peculiar to me, really…just that I can control reiatsu, and that I have lived for so very long. And I have learned a thing or two, young Abarai, about keeping that reiatsu under control." At that, the wide, blue eyes pierced Renji with cold, merciless force and Renji reeled at the power revealed to him.

"You need to work on that, son. Or else bad things will happen to you."

Renji reddened. "This…this is a new thing to me. M'power, it's gotten stronger all of a sudden. I've always just sucked at kido." Renji finished his glass of champagne and hiccupped, his shoulders suddenly slumped, eyes flat. "I'm an embarrassment to my division."

To Byakuya's surprise, Renji locked his gaze with Gabriel. "I can't see or even feel reiatsu. If you know so much, what do you suggest I do?" Renji's gruff voice was ragged with a note of pleading.

The older man extended his hands, and after a moment's hesitation, Renji's calloused hand met the soft, slightly wrinkled hands of Gabriel. His eyes hooded, Byakuya observed.

"Now, Renji." Gabriel's voice was soothing, calm. "I want you to summon your reiatsu like you did before."

Renji focused, Renji tried. Renji failed.

"Think of what you thought of back then." Gabriel's voice was like cool water on his brow. Renji thought back…he was talking with Byakuya and he remembered feeling that wave of warmth, but presently his reiatsu level was still low enough to be blocked by his gigai.

"Renji." Byakuya voice was velvet-smooth. "Give me your hand." And Renji did. He felt a slender thumb caress his palm and a sense of warmth suffused him. He felt like his very core filled with a red glow, and expanded – except this time he held Gabriel's hand and he could _see_ the glow, a second skin made of fiery light right outside of his body. Byakuya's was white. Gabriel's had a bluish tinge.

"Good. You can see it now." The cool, smooth voice washed over Renji's senses. "Now I want you to see it with your eyes closed. Close your eyes, Renji."

_Three humanoid shapes, in three colors, touching lightly. Brighter in the center, paler toward the outline._

"Renji. Now focus on your center. Ground and center but don't pull any power back." Renji did and to his utter amazement he felt balanced, his fatigue gone.

"Now pull your power back to your center…there…make it a ball that's smaller and smaller, brighter and brighter…now open your eyes."

Renji did. Posture aligned, fire in his eyes, he let go of both Gabriel's and Byakuya's hands. He closed his eyes again and he could still _see_ both their reiatsu, and his own.

He turned to see his captain's amazing, molten-silver eyes pinned on him, incredulous.

"We are both deeply in your debt, Gabriel-san." Byakuya's voice was low, full of wonder.

"Just a little something I picked up a long time ago." Gabriel stood.

"I am afraid I will have to take my leave of you now." He squinted his eyes in their direction and smiled. "You two better talk to one another more often."

Byakuya's eyebrow arched curiously. "Oh?"

"Take a look at your reiatsu again," Gabriel said, and left.

Renji closed his eyes and focused on the energies around him. He could still see the colors, feel the intensity…his flame-red, Byakuya's cool white. When he heard Byakuya gasp in surprise, he smiled, for he knew his captain saw the same thing as he did. Without them even realizing it, the tendrils of their reiatsu reached out to one another. Crimson and white wrapped around one another, intertwined.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Thank you all who have faved this, my first fanfiction ever! I am so excited to present you with another chapter where real life intrudes and our favorite protagonists have to earn their keep. I'd love to get some official reviews…please? **_

_Disclaimer: Bleach world and characters belong to Kubo Tite._

**CHAPTER 6**

Byakuya woke to kitchen sounds and bright light. He flinched his lids shut and turned away from the window. He was still dressed from last night, the sheets on the other half of the bed rumpled. His eyes wanted to keep the light out, but Kuchiki discipline persevered. Stumbling into the bathroom, he ignored the sharp, splinter-like pain of broken glass in his head, the awful pressure behind his eyes. The mirror showed him what he already knew he would see: a red-eyed, hung-over wreck.

With the shower on high and the lights turned off, his pounding headache subsided and he forced his thoughts to the previous night. A dinner. Some drinks – a full glass with each diminutive course. His mind wandered to that bitter chocolate mousse laced with cayenne…and what was that amber liquid he drank with it?

And after that…Gabriel, and his champagne. Oh gods. Gabriel, and his odd reiatsu technique – and Renji's hand in his, summoning a formidable reiatsu of his own. _Seeing_ reiatsu for the first time. What did that man do to his fukutaichou? Byakuya stretched his own energy outward painfully and barely felt Renji, whose reiatsu was under perfect control. How interesting…and had he been sober last night, he would have been able to _see_ it and comprehend the technique. Gabriel. He was very, very old for a man. Centuries, even. His power was great. Unable to focus on data at hand, Byakuya groaned.

"Kuchiki, you alright in there?" Renji's voice sounded through the door. "I have some tea." The tea was merely tepid when Renji's captain emerged from the bedroom dressed, his wet hair brushed back.

"You look like hell," Renji commented in an all-too cheerful voice. "You don't drink much, do you?"

Byakuya tried to fix his fukutaichou with his patented steel glare, but his glare wasn't operational under the circumstances. He sank into the sofa and sighed.

"My hangovers are legendary. I try to avoid them." Large hands pressed a cup of green tea into his.

"Thank you, Renji." He lifted the cup to his face, inhaling the scent with his eyes closed.  
"My favorite tea. Renji, you amaze me." Renji's eyes slid away from him, a dusting of blush coloring his cheeks.

"Hell, you're my taichou. I'm in charge of your comfort and safety."

Byakuya would have objected to the converse being true if it wasn't for a knock on the door.

"Room service!"

Renji opened the door and a uniformed man pushed a cart into the living room.  
"Your breakfast, gentlemen." .

Byakuya opened his eyes to inspect the contents of the plates. "What is that, Renji. Maybe I should not eat yet…"

Renji grinned.

"For you, since you don't like sweets, a spicy egg and vegetable omelette and toasted bread. For me, pancakes with eggs and bacon. Lots of water. And coffee." Renji assessed his captain's color and energy level.

"Kuchiki…I suggest you try. This way you won't travel on the train with full stomach."

Byakuya suppressed a groan, wrapping a mantle of dignity around his shoulders. With a stoic expression he applied himself to the plate set before him.

"Will you call Urahara-san?" Renji asked between bites.

"The phone won't work." Byakuya handed the offending instrument to Renji, who

flipped it open and pushed a few buttons.

"It's out of charge. Do you have the charger?" The charger, it turned out, was missing. Neither man remembered the Urahara Shoten telephone number. And neither man realized they could have asked the concierge at the front desk for help.

"I guess we'll just have to get on the train and go," Renji said. He pulled a wallet out of the inside breast pocket of his red leather jacket and peeked inside.

"I don't have enough for tickets…how much do you have left, Kuchiki?"

Fortified with eggs for decades to come, Byakuya reached into the right front pocket of his trousers. He paused. "My wallet was in here."

And thus the great wallet hunt commenced. The sofa, the bed, the floors, all pockets of all garments and backpacks currently present were searched – yet the wallet was nowhere to be found.

"I saw you pay for dinner last night and put your wallet away – it wasn't left behind." Renji's amber eyes darkened with worry.

"What do you remember after we left the restaurant?"

Kuchiki Byakuya forced himself to cut through the haze again, recalling the unusual events of the preceding night.

"Well…we figured out we were too drunk to ride our skateboards." Renji saw the corners of his mouth tugged upward in a hint of a smile.

"So we carried them, and…there was that young woman who needed to be rescued from her boyfriend." Byakuya paused. "What a strange couple."

Renji groaned.

"They stole your wallet!"  
"Impossible. The girl only hugged me to get away from that man." They both remembered him, yelling and waving his arms, and the girl running to Byakuya, hiding in his arms, crying.

"Well, taichou, my Rukongai dog skills must be eroding if I didn't catch on right away. He caused a disturbance, she pretended to ask for help, and picked your pocket while you watched the guy make a lot of noise." Che. Renji felt disgusted with himself. Such a rudimentary foil.

"I'm so sorry. I should have seen it. It's so easy to do, even Rukia and I used to…" Renji stopped himself.

"You are Rukia used to do what, Renji?"

Renji's jaw tightened. "Not that I'm proud of that, mind you, but we did pick some pockets here'n'there. Jus f'food, mind ya." Renji's Rukongai brogue crept in as he stood before his captain, trying to put a good face on a bad situation.

"Had you no…alternatives?"

"Sure…I mean, some kids sold their bodies." Renji's off-hand comment brought Byakuya to his feet. His fukutaichou and Byakuya's adopted sister… Renji took a step back. "Not us, though. Those who did that, they died pretty young. Sorry…Kuchiki." Renji's voice grew raspy. "I guess Rukia never told you."

Byakuya sighed. "I never thought to ask." _I don't know the sister I adopted. That will change. _

"Your history notwithstanding, we still need to get to Karakura. As my living world guide, what do you suggest, Abarai-fukutaichou?"

His title brought Renji forward into the present.

"I'd just check out of the hotel. They already have the credit card number. Then we can bust out of our gigai, abandon them, and shunpo to Karakura."

"If we can find a safe place to hide them... Urahara-san was adamant that nothing happens to these bodies. They are a new-generation experimental version."

Renji tilted his head in thought, his tattooed brow furrowed. "If that won't work, we can walk to Karakura. It will take a week or two. Or we can earn money for a bus or a train ticket somehow. That would be faster, depending on what we do."

XXXXXXX

Streams of people passed them in a pedestrian shopping area. A young woman played her violin, her fingers red in the cold wind. Occasionally, a passerby would stop, listen to her music and drop some money in her open violin case.

"Kuchiki, can you sing?"

"Don't be ridiculous. A man in my position is not trained as a performer. It is not done."

"What does Gabriel do, if so many people are willing to pay to see him?"

Byakuya considered. "He uses kido to reinforce already impressive slight-of-hand tricks. Sometime it's just kido, and that's when his reiatsu surges. I saw him walk on water – that was pure kido. Also, I saw him juggle knives, and that seemed to have been pure skill. Other acts were a bit of each."

Renji listened to the strange, rhythmic wail of the violin.

"Do you think you could do kido out of a gigai?" Renji's eyes grew crimson with excitement.

"If I did, you would never be allowed to tell of it."

"If you won't tell on m' pickin' pockets, I won't tell on yer bein' a street performer."

Their eyes met, Renji grinned his infectious grin and Byakuya felt the corners of his mouth curve up into a smile.

Renji was enchanted. The smile lit up his captain's face, his grey eyes lively with adventure.

_Byakuya…so awesome…_

Renji felt their reiatsu brush. The contact felt intimate.

XXXXXXX

Few people gathered, a few at a time, to watch the two men juggle oranges. And more oranges, and pass them to one another – and wait, did that orange still at the apex of its path a bit too long? How could that be?

Coins slowly accumulated in their cardboard box.

The black-haired man in his white jacket stepped onto a skateboard, still juggling. The redhead in his red jacket did the same. They pushed off, describing a circular path, oranges still spanning the space between them. Their eyes were strangely defocused as they boarded faster, the speed of the flying fruit increased to be but a blur in the air.

And then – nothing. Grinding to a sudden halt, they each caught four orange fruits in their hands, turned to their audience, and bowed to a sizable crowd.

Yet the crowd expected more.

So far, juggling and skateboarding, reinforced by tenuous tendrils of their reiatsu, resembled nothing more than agility exercises taught at the Shinigami Academy. Their audience was interested, true, but not overwhelmed enough to part with even more money. Byakuya met Renji's eyes.

_What now?_

Their reiatsu still in communicative contact, there was little need for words. As one they mounted their skateboards, Renji following Byakuya's lead. Minute shifts of their balance propelled them over the smooth pavement, circling and interlacing their path in an intricate pattern of symmetry and grace. Often their paths threatened to collide, yet they escaped their fate and their audience gasped; they glided on, unperturbed, erect, poised.

The gasps…people wanted to see a close call again? Renji would give them one. He timed his path to cut directly in front of Byakuya. Byakuya sailed on, unperturbed, yet their eyes met in a quick flash of challenge. The game was on.

Renji folded his body on the skateboard's moving surface, now balancing a lot closer to the ground. But where one goes low, the other goes high; as Renji's crouched form threatened to cut off Byakuya's path, the kido master gathered his reiatsu and jumped. His wheels almost touched Renji's head and he heard gasps, cries, and clapping of their audience.

They did it again, Byakuya's jump longer and higher, almost impossibly suspended over Renji's crouched form. And once more – yet this time Renji remained standing and Byakuya launched himself to an impossible height, his board barely clearing the shining red hair, his fukutaichou's figure gracefully gliding to the side, escaping harm. As one, they circled to one another, grinding to a halt. Resounding applause greeted them and first hesitantly, then in a healthy stream, their audience parted with the spare change in their pockets.

"That's good enough for a dinner and almost one train fare," Renji said. The evening chill chased their patrons inside, to warm rooms with warm food and it was only they who were stuck outside.

He looked at Byakuya. "We shouldn't have checked out of that hotel. We can't check back inside now, with the credit card gone."

Byakuya saw the weight of responsibility in his fukutaichou's eyes. Yet he felt equally responsible for his subordinate. He was his captain and the well-being of all his men rested on his shoulders.

"Would you like to have dinner, Abarai?"

Renji nodded. "Noodles sound good."

The cold wind propelled their skateboards through falling darkness and away from the shopping zone. Inexpensive and hot, noodles could be found few streets over.

Grateful to get out of the cold, autumn wind, they sipped tea while waiting for their bowls to arrive. The place was good and cheap: Renji let his Karakura experience guide him to find a place lit with unforgiving fluorescent light and cheap plastic tables and chairs.

"There is no way we'll get on the road tonight, unless we want to walk," Renji said. "We should already have been there."

"I am surprised nobody came to look for us," Byakuya noted. "However, I insist we make our own way. We will not disgrace the 6th division by being rescued."

Renji nodded. Being rescued would make them the laughing stock of the 11th division.

"We could still ditch our gigai," he offered. "Not that I don't like being here, but…"

"But?"

"You ain't used to sleeping outside when the weather's like this," Renji said.

"I slept outside a number of times." Byakuya's voice almost held a defensive note.

"Not as much as I have," Renji dismissed his captain irreverently. "Besides, I was with the eleventh, remember?"

Byakuya arched his elegant eyebrow, the intrepid street performer gone, Kuchiki heir back in place.

"And what did the eleventh division teach you?"

Renji paused. Yes, the eleventh was tough and never complained, unless it was Yumichika and his hair…a sudden thought occurred to him.

"If Yumichika was here, he'd take the money and go turn it around in a game. He has really awesome gambling luck."

"Mm." Byakuya applied himself to hot noodles in their fragrant broth.

"It sure worked well, the way you kept the oranges in the air," Renji said suggestively. "I bet luck had something to do with it."

Byakuya met Renji's eyes innocently enough. Renji thrilled to the spark of excitement behind that calm façade when Byakuya said, "I, too, have been known for gambling luck, Abarai. But we'll let that be our last option."

XXXXXXX

Byakuya had no trouble escaping his gigai after his previous success. It was not so for Renji. Good half hour later, Renji still struggled, his reiatsu threatening to flare. A bit of his outline began to materialize outside his shoulders when there was an almost audible snap. Face slicked with sweat, his eyes rolled back in his head as his body fell forward.

"Abarai-fukutaichou!" Byakuya was at his side instantly, eyes wide with concern. Renji had enough power to escape the gigai; subtlety he still lacked.

Byakuya rolled Renji onto his back and placed his cool, slender hand on his forehead. He could feel his fukutaichou's reiatsu rage against the gigai's restraints. He stroked his forehead with care he didn't know he possessed.

"Abarai-fukutaichou. Wake up."

Renji remained prone and motioness; cold wind swirled dead, dessicated leaves around his head. With an air of resignation, Byakuya hoisted Renji and carried him to a nearby park bench. He straightened his unconscious body, propping the red head and shoulders in his arms. At least he was off the cold concrete now.

"Abarai. Wake up, Abarai."

_Renji…_

Byakuya's voice was soft, insistent. His hand stroked the tattooed forehead again, gentle fingers feeling their way along the black, symmetrical lines. Renji's reiatsu was still riled and Byakyua feared his interference would only stir the waves further, like the wind whipping up peaks on a surface of a lake.

He closed his eyes, his hand on Renji's gloriously smooth, red hair. He would wait.

Renji came to. Eyes still closed, he immediately felt a familiar reiatsu brushing against his. His back and shoulders felt curiously warm. He cracked his eye. An expanse of white leather jacket brushed his cheek. Strands of raven black hair fell forward off a chiseled face, serene and otherworldly. The gray eyes were closed.

Renji closed his open eye again, exhausted. So he failed to free himself of the gigai. _Useless fukutaichou, _the old voice scolded. _Not useless, _he fought the voice back. _I did good last night. I did good today. _A memory of his captain's voice stirred in his mind. _"Perhaps it's time you forgave yourself."_ And warmed by it, he leaned his head into the warm white jacket and released a long, contented sigh.

Byakuya felt his lieutenant's reiatsu change as soon as he rose to consciousness. Renji was awake, his senses alert, yet he said nothing. And then he felt that gentle stir against his body, heard the contented sigh and felt tendril of Renji's reiatsu intertwine with his own. The feeling was…not unpleasant, he decided. He forced his hand to abandon Renji's head.

"Abarai. How do you feel?"

"Mmm." Renji stirred. His eyes were still closed and he showed no indication of moving from the sanctuary of his taichou's warm embrace.

"Abarai-fukutaichou."

Hearing the steel core back in his captain's voice and feeling his captain straighten up and unwind his protective arms, Renji opened his eyes and eased himself up.

"Ah..no…I feel fine."

His eyes were averted.

"I am sorry, taichou. I tried."

"It cannot be helped. We will find another way." Kuchiki Byakuya's voice was impassive, emotion and reiatsu both tightly reined in.

Renji's expression brightened as he turned toward Byakuya again.

"In that case, you shunpo ahead and I'll wait here with your gigai."

"That sounds much like a command, Abarai-fukutaichou," Byakuya said, his voice as chill as the wind.

"Sorry, but I am your guide in this world. I cannot delay the mission. You don't like being here anyway. Besides," Renji brightened up, "you can even catch the last train to Karakura in your spirit body – it will take you right there. Nobody would see you."

Kuchiki Byakuya considered the alternative.

"Unacceptable. You may be my guide, but I am still responsible for my subordinates. I cannot leave you virtually defenseless in what I consider to be a hostile environment."

To his great surprise, Renji did not object.

"Well then," his fukutaichou said. "Let's find us a game to win."

XXXXXXX

Leaving the venerable center of Nagoya, they headed for its port. As the neighborhood

deteriorated some, Renji noted the similarities between the human and the Soul Society underworlds. There were bars, pachinko parlors, a red-light district. More men than women on the street after dark; no children. Most men took one look at Renji and moved out of their way.

"Why are we so conspicuous, Abarai?" Byakuya intoned in a hushed voice.

"Dunno. Let's try in here." Renji nodded toward a pachinko parlor with a wooden sign out front.

They walked into the dim, smoke-filled room. The ping of balls rolling, men at the machines cursing when they lost, an occasional sound of excitement resounded at a game well played.

They leaned against the wall to survey the scene.

"Look…the guys who win don't get money. They only get a token." Byakuya's voice was barely audible.

"Yeah…but look at that door over there…" Renji gave a brief nod toward the rear wall; a thin sliver of light was visible underneath.

Renji's interest in the door did not pass unnoticed. A heavier, middle-aged man approached them, his eyes shrewdly assessing their leather jackets, his gaze trying to pierce Byakuya's opaque stare and Renji's sunglasses.

"Welcome. Who do you represent?" The question was aimed between the two of them.

Renji perceived his captain's reiatsu gather somewhat.

"We are…on our own. A vacation, so to speak." The Kuchiki heir looked through the proprietor with his customary cold gaze, giving away nothing. The proprietor glanced at Renji, his eyes lingering on the tattoos peeking out his neckline, his gaze making its way up to the forehead.

"I am Mizuni. Let me know if you need anything."

"I am Kuchiki; this is Abarai." Byakuya allowed a slight warming of his gray gaze. "We were hoping for a bit of…excitement tonight."

"Not pachinko?"

"Perhaps something more entertaining." Byakuya's voice felt like cool velvet.

Mizuni hesitated. "Well then. Follow me."

Byakuya and Renji entered a small back room where the oicho-kabu gambling was being held. Men sat around round tables, sake bottles handy, stale cigarette smoke acrid in the air. Several card games were in progress. Some players were stripped to the waist, impressive full-body tattoos on display. Mizuni pointed at two empty chairs; man sitting next to one scowled at the newcomers. Renji noticed half of his little finger was missing.

"Make yourselves comfortable, Kuchiki-san, Abarai-san", Mizuni said. Once out of sight, he picked up the telephone and dialed.

XXXXXXX

Renji started out with a few bigger bets and kept losing. Byakuya, on the other hand, started out with a lot of smaller bets, but kept winning. Not too much and not overtly, but enough to break even for the both of them after they both finished their first bottle of sake. Alcohol was indispensable to the game; if they neither smoked nor drank, they would have looked downright suspicious.

Their reiatsu would meet as needed, taps of tendrils against one another as fingers touching. This way, Byakuya knew the cards Renji held in his hand and was able to bet to their mutual benefit. They sipped their second bottle a lot slower, mindful of the disastrous effects of wine on the previous night. Renji was almost broke when Byakuya slipped a few large bills in his pocket to keep them from being gambled away.

The door opened to admit three men in black leather jackets. They wore sunglasses similar to Renji's and their swagger reminded Byakuya of certain members of the 11th division. The three surveyed the room with a proprietary gaze. The only players meeting their eyes were the tattooed ones. Byakuya studiously ignored them, a mask of cool indifference resting easily on his exquisite features. Renji monitored them from his behind his sunglasses as they advanced to their table.

They stood behind Renji.

"Hear we have some special guests tonight," the shortest one said. "Who are you with?"

Byakuya and Renji knew that denizens of any underworld travelled in groups. Judging from other players' curious glances at Renji's tattoos…his loose, red hair…and from the new arrivals' walk and talk…it was suddenly quite possible that they were considered either friendly brethren, or rival gang members.

"He's with me." Byakuya threw a card out, not bothering to stand.

"I see. And you are?" The voice held an unmistakable challenge.

"Kuchiki Byakuya, captain of the 6th division of Gotei 13." Byakuya watched his fellow players throw out cards with lazy eyes. "This man is Abarai Renji, my lieutenant."

"Gotei 13? Which benevolent brotherhood is that?"

"We're small, and we ain't local," Renji grumbled. "We're here on a vacation."

The shortest man pulled up a chair while his companions lounged against the wall.

"Che. A vacation, ne? Where from?"

"Karakura," Byakuya allowed.

"Karakura? I didn't know there was much action in such a small place."

The leader looked Renji up and down.

"Take your top off."

"Why?"

"So I can check out your ink, asshole. You know the drill."

Renji noted the half-naked men displaying their tattoos, playing cards and studiously ignoring their encounter with the local mob. He stood and shrugged off his red and black leather jacket. Then he slowly unbuttoned the front placket and the cuffs of his black shirt and slowly, sinuously slipped his long arms out of his black shirt and let it hang out of his pants.

The leader's eyes were glued to the symmetrical, geometric patterns descending from Renji's brow down his neck, accentuating the muscle definition in his shoulders and arms, trickling down his back and his chest, tracing the sixpack of his abs and dipping underneath the waitstband of his trousers. His back was as handsomely decorated as his chest.

Renji looked around. The whole room went still, cards stopped slapping the worn tabletops, sake was set aside. He was an object of curious scrutiny.

"Interesting," the leader said. "Who did this?"

"A friend of mine. Zabimaru." Renji felt a rumble of amusement in the back of his mind.

"There is more. Take your pants off." None of the men looked surprised at the command. The tattooed ones watched with interest.

Byakuya was about to object when Renji flashed him a crooked smile. "Everyone's always curious about these. I'm flattered."

Byakuya watched Renji pull his shirt out of his pants, undo his belt buckle and unbutton his loose trousers and step out of them, his boots still on. The tall leader lifted his eyebrows at the sight of Renji's fundoshi. "I thought nobody wore old Japanese underwear anymore," he said.

"Tradition matters." Renji held his head high and stretched his shoulders some, his vermillion tresses gleaming in the scant light of the gambling parlour. The air around him crackled with his very essence as he possessed the space around him with leonine grace.

Byakuya was suddenly struck by his sheer physical beauty. The thick, crimson hair was loose tonight, spilling down past his shoulder blades. Tanned skin shone under the imperfect lights of the gambling parlor, accentuated by intricate black design interlacing into his fundoshi and below it, ending on his outer hips. Renji turned and posed so that all could admire his ink-marked skin.

"I take it these designs mean something in your organization," the tall leader said.

"They are milestones of my personal achievements." The pride in Renji's voice was unmistakable. He began to dress himself, deliberate movements graceful and dignified. The card games around them resumed.

"You got any ink on you?" Tall leader questioned Byakuya.

"None."

"Why not?"

"There is no need to showcase my achievement." The tone was impersonal, cold, yet there was a mercurial quality to his gray eyes. And he threw out another lucky card and pulled the pile of money to himself.

Mizuni entered the room and whispered a few words with his dealers. His eyebrows knit together. He turned to Byakuya.

"You're winning a bit much."

"Luck is with me tonight."

"Too much luck can be dangerous."

"You should have seen me last night," Byakuya said. "No luck at all." His grey eyes were hooded, hidden by long eyelashes.

"Perhaps it's time for you gentleman to take a break," the tall leader said. His two companions peeled themselves away from the walls.  
Renji's eyes met Byakuya's. "I could always lose my money down the street," he said.

"No, asshole. You're taking a break from Nagoya. We're escorting you to the train station."

_**That's it, she wrote. Please review!**_


	7. Chapter 7

_**Hi everyone. Thank you for your messages! **_

_**In previous chapters, Byakuya and Renji found themselves in the living world outside of Karakura and ran out of money. They did well earning some cash and increasing it in a card game, except the locals figured they belong to some new yakuza gang on account of Renji's tattoos. The local gang escorted them out of town. Politely. Now our favorite protagonists make their way toward Karakura with only a few coins in their pockets – and they're about to run out.**_

**CHAPTER 7**

_Bleach world and characters belong to Tite Kubo._

The lights in the train car were dimmed at this late hour, the two double rows of seats half empty.

"I guess all decent people are at home asleep," Renji noted. He looked at the train schedule. "How far are we going, Kuchiki?"

His taichou patted the pocket hiding their alien bills and coins.

"According to this schedule, this will take the two of us to Aichi if we save enough for a cheap inn and food, or to Kanagawa if we spend almost everything we have." Kuchiki Byakuya, a scion of a great, ancient and wealthy clan, sounded grim. Never in his life was he in a situation where money was an issue. Having to set money aside for cheap street food was…humiliating. He thought back to his significant assets in Seireitei. If he could only access some of his wealth, he could run it through Urahara Shoten. If. He turned away from Renji, unwilling to expose his confusion. This is not how this mission was supposed to proceed.

"Ah…so we'll do this." Renji radiated confidence. "You'll leave your gigai with me and go ahead. You can always hone in on my reiatsu during a recovery mission. It would just be one day, two at most." Renji's voice brooked no argument. He was in charge of his taichou's safety and comfort in the living world, and he would not, under any circumstances, subject him to the unpleasantries of a life on the street.

"Absolutely not. Do not make me repeat myself."

Renji thought for awhile. "How about this, then. You'll leave your gigai and ride in your spirit body. I will stow your gigai with the luggage. This will take us to Yokohama, since only I will have to pay."

They already dismissed the option of riding without pay. The discussion was brief. Renji left theft behind a long time ago and Byakuya was not going to stoop to it now. Cheating at cards against the Yakuza was a skill, but outright theft of goods or services would have been humiliating at best.

Byakuya turned his head and stared him, amazed.

"Are you really that obtuse? How would the humans view a lifeless body, stowed in the luggage, in your possession?"

"I ain't obtuse," Renji snapped. "We need to think of a way. If we travel from city to city and gamble in each one, eventually I'll shred this precious gigai in a fight. And it will take two weeks to get back home if we walk. Do you trust the other divisions to keep up with our paperwork for that long, Kuchiki?"

Byakuya arched his eyebrow.

"You stated my argument, Abarai. I am not leaving you behind when you cannot exit your gigai to defend yourself."

They travelled for some time, the texture of their silence prickly with discord.

Unable to stand it anymore, Renji ventured forth.

"If you weren't so pig-headed and left your gigai behind, you could have been fast asleep in your own bed by now."

"Don't forget your place, Abarai-fukutaichou." Byakuya's voice was calm.

"I'm not. It's my place to provide for your comfort and safety on this mission. You're not letting me do my job." Stubbornly, Renji failed to use proper form of address. They were, after all, still undercover.

"Abarai. Your reiatsu."

Renji took a deep breath and focused on his center. The wild tendrils of flame-colored energy were pulled back. His stubborn streak was acting up and it took Renji some time to settle.

"You have done well." Byakuya's soft voice broke the silence.

Renji startled. "Done well in what?"

"You have made it possible for us, for me, to track and interview Gabriel. The world of the living changed so fast. I would not have been able to do so without you."

Renji reddened.

"…you could do it now if you had to."

"True."

The clicking of metal wheels on the railroad tracks was hypnotic.

"I'll stay up if you want to sleep, Kuchiki."

"No. You sleep, Abarai. I am used to sleeping very little. I shall rouse you in Kanagawa."

Renji closed his eyes. The gentle sway of the train was soothing, the seats were soft. He sank his head back.

Renji was well and truly asleep. Byakuya, on the other hand, sat straight and still, panic but thinly veiled in his eyes.

His fukutaichou's head lolled toward him, invading his personal space. Byakuya could feel the tendrils of Renji's reaitsu reach for his own as Renji buried his nose in the crook of his neck. The warmth of the sleeping man against his shoulder would have been bad enough; now Byakuya was alarmed by the moist, hot breath tickling that soft patch of sensitive skin under Byakuya's ear. He dared not move lest he wake his fukutaichou and reveal their awkward position. Frozen in place, a slight shiver passed through his still body, followed by a wave of goose bumps.

Renji stirred. His long hair splayed over Byakuya's white jacket, red hair muted to maroon in the dim light. Byakuya eyed it with interest. It no longer reminded him of the day their matched their steel. The memory of the metallic odor of Renji's blood was forgotten, replaced by Renji's warm, spicy scent.

Breathing became harder for Byakuya, yet with every breath he yearned for the trip to last forever so he could just sit there and _feel_. His lips parted slightly, gray eyes were glazed and defocused. A manifestation of his disordered state grew alarmingly under the hands folded in his lap. It was a long way to Kanagawa.

XXXXXXX

Renji felt a rough hand shake his shoulder.

"Abarai. Wake up."

"Uhn." He tightened his arms around his companion, his eyes firmly shut.

"Abarai!" A zap of cold reiatsu, along with a hissed command, roused him from his slumber. Renji's eyes flew wide in alarm and his agitation only grew when he found his right arm slung around his captain's shoulders, his body sprawled across his chest.

"T-taichou!" He stuttered, removed his person to where it belonged, and blushed furiously.

"I take it you slept well, Abarai." Kuchiki Byakuya seemed as impassive as always, slate grey eyes hooded, stone expression giving away nothing.

"Yes, K-Kuchiki. I am sorry…" Renji grasped for words to apologize for his unseemly nighttime migration.

"You were asleep, Abarai. There is no need to discuss this any further."

The train pulled into the station and Byakuya removed his backpack and skateboard from the overhead compartment.

"Come along."

The wind tore at Renji's loose hair, stealing the delicious body heat he felt upon waking. The sun wasn't up yet and only trucks rumbled along the lonely streets, delivering goods to dimly lit businesses.

Renji's thoughts were occupied. There had to be a way to get them out of the weather and into contact with a solid breakfast.

He walked up to an idling truck, returning in a few minutes.

"The driver says there's a place a few blocks over, in the warehouse district." He repeated the address for Byakuya.

Byakuya merely nodded.

_He's holding up pretty well in that gigai, _Renji thought, feeling like he would freeze and his fingers would turn to icicles and fall off.

"Kuchiki…are you warm enough in this wind?"

"I am fine."

"How do you do it?" Renji's voice was pinched

Byakuya looked at Renji, his expression bemused. "Extend your reiatsu slightly outside your gigai."

Renji stopped in his tracks, leaning into the bitter wind. He grounded himself, felt the ball of fire at his center, then slowly spun the web of tendrils outward. He felt his gigai give resistance. He pushed and the force of his spiritual pressure snapped, turning inward, against him. Renji's hands flew to his head and he stumbled, almost falling to his knees.

Byakuya slid beside him and propped up his shoulders. "How do you feel?"

"Headache," Renji said. "The gigai is fighting me."

Byakuya slowly let go of his fukutaichou. "You have improved regardless. Do not let this discourage you." He thought for a bit. "It seems that your reiatsu has no trouble escaping your gigai when you're asleep. Perhaps you just try too hard."

"That's all right," Renji said, not wanting to discuss his nighttime migrations. "Just pushing my reiatsu a little makes me a little warmer."

XXXXXXX

The "Red Truck Café" was an establishment known as a "diner". Its modest length was crowded with tables and chairs, and the doors were, surprisingly, open. A few men in work clothes sat breaking their fast. Strains of a musical instrument were heard from the back.

"Here, find a table for us, Kuchiki. I need to talk to someone." Renji disappeared through a slit in the fabric curtain. Byakuya left his fukutaichou to his pursuits…bathroom, perhaps? His eyes scanned the cheap menu. They could afford to eat here. Once. After that, they were entirely broke. For the first time, Byakuya seriously considered Renji's suggestion to leave his gigai and contact an emergency extraction team.

Renji emerged from the kitchen with a small, middle-aged woman.

"My name is Yoshie," she said. "Welcome. Your offer is acceptable. First you eat, then Abarai-san will help in the kitchen with our morning rush." She smiled in a motherly way. "Don't worry, these things happen. Travelling can be hazardous for anybody. Even a benevolent brotherhood boss such as yourself can be found cut off from his support area."

Only the practiced and stern Kuchiki demeanor kept Byakuya's eyebrows from shooting up in astonishment. He inclined his head to the woman.

"Yoshie-san. Thank you for your hospitality."

Renji sat across from him. Byakuyas' voice was but a quiet hiss.

"What exactly are we doing here?"

Renji flashed him a wicked grin.

"Well y'see..it's like this. They think we're with the yakuza because of our flashy clothes, and my shades and those tattoos. So they're bein' nice t' us. And, they're bein' extra nice because we're in dire straits an' I offered to work off our breakfast washing dishes in the back."  
"You what?"

"Ah, don't worry, Kuchiki. I've done it before. Besides, it will give you a chance to catch some sleep."

Byakuya did not quite meet Renji's eyes. "I am fully capable of washing dishes as well."

"Out of the question," Renji said, his voice commanding. "First of all, the kitchen's not big enough. Second, you'd ruin our image. Only gofers like me do dishes so that bosses like you can live a life of luxury."

Renji's light, joking words hit Byakuya hard. People of lesser stations always exerted themselves on his behalf. And what did he give them in return? Leadership? Occasional approval?

When their hearty breakfast arrived, accompanied by Byakuya's favorite and personal tea blend, he felt entirely undone.

Custom picked up fast and Renji disappeared into the kitchen.

"Kuchiki-san, why don't you follow me," Yoshie-san said, eager for him to clear the table for new customers. She led him through the kitchen, where Renji was bent over a sink of sudsy water, and into a small storage room.

A girl sat on a chair, a musical instrument tucked under her chin.

"This is my daughter Yumiko. She will stop practicing her violin so that it doesn't disturb you, Kuchiki-san." Yumiko stood up and bowed uncertainly, a bow in her right hand.

"I wish our accommodations were better for you, Kuchiki-san," the proprietor rambled on. "It is so unfortunate for one of your position to be inconvenienced…"

Byakuya was appalled to hear a note of thinly disguised fear in the woman's voice. He looked at her, meeting her eyes and allowing warmth and gratitude to show.

"Yoshie-san, your accommodations and your food are most excellent, and once again I thank you. Yumiko may play her violin, if she is so inclined." He looked at the girl. "I like music." He allowed a gentle smile to tug the corners of his mouth. Anything, even a smile, just so these people stopped acting like he was going to decapitate them.

Yumiko was much younger and only a bit shorter than Rukia, but she grasped her violin with confidence beyond her years. Sitting at the very edge of her chair, she peered at the music on her stand.

"I'll play this again because I have an audition next week," Yumiko said in a serious voice. "If I do well, I will be accepted into an orchestra."

"What will that mean?"

"It means I will not have to wash the dishes anymore. I am glad your friend offered to do my work so I can rehearse." Her eyes intense in her pale, calm face, she launched into Paganini's Chaprice no. 24 in A Minor.

The music was nothing like Byakuya had ever heard before; bright and jolly, complex and haunting in turns. He found he had to close his eyes to absorb every nuance, every vibration. The finale shook him to the core of his being; the consequent silence filled him with pain.

He opened his eyes to see young Yumiko watch him carefully, gauging his reaction.

Byakuya met her gaze, his eyes wide with wonder. "That was…truly beautiful."

"Do you mind if I play some more?" Yumiko asked hopefully. "There are passages I need to study…"

"Please do." Byakuya sat on his crate, leaning against the adjoining wall. His eyes were closed as he immersed himself in the music of the young prodigy.

XXXXXXX

A scream of pain roused him. A nightmare – no, a battle? Somewhat disoriented he rose, the reality of his situation crashing down on him. Not bothering to straighten his appearance, Byakuya opened the door into the kitchen. Young Yumiko was bent over her left hand, tears running down her face. Her mother held her shoulders while Renji filled a tub with ice water.

"Plunge it in!" Byakuya heard Renji's shout and saw Yumiko slowly immerse her red, scalded hand.

"That hurts so much," she sobbed into her mother's shoulder.

"Shh…it will heal fast, you'll see," Yoshie was heard saying, her words contradicting the concern in her eyes.

"Not before the audition it won't," Yumiko sobbed.

Byakuya cleared his throat. Renji met his eyes. "She was helping with the cooking and lifted a lid. Steam billowed out, scalding her hand."

Byakuya considered the girl. He'd felt pretty useless right now, with Renji taking care of things. Here, however, was something he could help with.

"May I take a look?" Renji started at Byakuya's voice. He saw his captain approach Yumiko, placed his hands on her shoulders, and closed his eyes.

"It's not too bad," he said. "I think I can do this."

"Do what?" Yoshie-san asked. There was no reply. Byakuya lifted Yumiko's hand from the ice bath and held it in his smooth, pale fingers. Renji closed his eyes and focused on Byakuya's reiatsu and he felt, no he _saw_, the swirling energies gather and pour out of Byakuya's hands.

"Oh!" Yoshie-san exclaimed and Renji opened his eyes to see the amazed mother gaze at Byakuya's hands. The faint glow of green light now enveloped Yumika's injured hand. Pain slowly receded from Yumika's face and the red skin of her hand lightened to progressively paler shades of pink.

Byakuya opened his eyes, letting go.

The girl was speechless, eyeing him with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. She flexed her fingers, her hand pink but the angry blisters gone.

Yoshie-san bowed deeply. "I have never seen such a thing, Kuchiki-sama. Thank you. For all of us, I thank you very much."

Byakuya returned her bow. "It was my pleasure." He turned to Renji. "I will go back to sleep, Abarai. Let me know when you are done." He glided out of the small kitchen gracefully. Only when out of sight, he slumped onto his packing crate, leaned against the wall, and closed his eyes. Healing kido was never his strength. It was serviceable, but not efficient. Healing always left him exhausted.

Byakuya felt a large, warm hand touch his shoulder.

"Kuchiki…you should probably wake up now." Renji was down on one knee before him, his crimson hair bound in a braid, his sunglasses off in the dim room.

"Abarai. What time is it?"

"Close to dinner time."

"We better find a game to win somewhere."

Renji grinned at him. "I can do you one better. Yoshie-san's sister Nariko has a small inn with an onsen nearby. We are invited to stay overnight. Yoshie's husband Matsu drives a truck and he's going to Yokohama tomorrow. That's our way…he can give us a ride."

Byakuya lifted his tired eyes to Renji.

"An onsen? Really?"


	8. Chapter 8

_**Here's another chapter, reformatted for and re-edited for your pleasure.**_

_**Warning: Yaoi / lemon below! (My first lemon…hope you enjoy).**_

_**XXXXXXXXX**_

**CHAPTER 8**

_Bleach world and characters belong to Tite Kubo._

They were shown to their room by the very curious Nariko, whose sister Yoshie was ever so grateful for the healing of her daughter's scalded hand. Nariko had a good reason to be curious – the arthritis in her knee was giving her a lot of trouble, especially now that the weather has turned. She supplied her unusual guests towels and yukata, and after seeing to dinner preparations she picked up her cellular telephone.

XXXXXX

"You seem tired," Renji remarked to Byakuya.

"Healing kido always takes it out of me," Byakuya admitted after some time.

They have already washed and now they soaked in a communal hot tub. Two women and a man left shortly after they settled in the wonderful, hot water.

"Is your reiatsu low, then?" Renji asked.

"No...just not at its fullest." Byakuya's tight voice and closed eyes spoke volumes.

Renji had so much energy he could hardly contain it or even channel it properly. The other, of a true kido master, was almost depleted.

"Kuchiki…can one person use another person's reiatsu?"

Byakuya cracked his grey eyes open. "Yes. But they need to be well in tune with one another."

"We weren't always in tune with one another, but we have improved, I think," Renji forged right ahead.

Now Byakuya's eyes were wide open, an aristocratic eyebrow rising slightly in the lovely, pale face. _Interesting. Tell me more._

Renji grinned. "I can give you a lot of spare reiatsu, it would be like recharging a battery."

"I don't know what a battery is, Abarai, but I think I get the general idea. Have you ever shared reiatsu with another person before?"

"You mean, aside from you?"

A faint flush rose to Byakuya's cheeks. "You remember?"

"Sure. With Gabriel, when I was able to see it for the first time. Our reiatsu combined. Surely you could take what you need that way."

It occurred to Byakuya that there was another way of sharing reiatsu, an old and venerable technique practiced by humans and shinigami alike. A very…intimate…technique. In their case, however, simple meditation will have to suffice.

"If you are willing to try, we can after we get out and dry off," Byakuya suggested. "At least it will give you more practice using finer control."

Byakuya sat in seiza across from Renji. Their knees were almost touching, their hands lightly joined. He was supposed to ground and center, but that wasn't an easy task. His mind was flooded with images of Renji getting out of the onsen, water beading down his muscled back and thighs, Renji toweling his long, crimson hair, Renji drying off his tattooed skin…

Byakuya felt his reiatsu flare some at the memory. _Here and now. Think of the here and now._ With steel-clad Kuchiki resolve he forced himself to the here and now, only to feel his warm, slender hands in Renji's larger, cooler ones. Renji's thumb ran over his own lightly, adjusting his position and Byakuya's body reacted to that by leaning further forward, the tendrils of his reiatsu reaching for those of Renji's. He met the eyes of his fukutaichou who observed him with breathless interest, sparks of red fire in the back of his luminous amber eyes. He lowered his gaze away from the heat in those eyes only to rest on Renji's full, slightly parted lips. A memory of warm breath under his ear stirred him further and suddenly he wanted to know how soft did those lips really feel.

Renji sat grounded and centered, his reiatsu extended as far as his gigai would allow. He then observed Byakuya settling down and placing his hands in his own. Renji met his captain's eyes at the touch. Instead of the flat, opaque gray he was drawn into pools of liquid silver. He felt Byakuya's eyes on him, on his lips, he felt Byakuya lean into his hands ever so slightly…and Renji's eyes dimmed in pleasure of the gentle communion. Just like that night of too much wine, he _saw_ a flame-colored tendril of his reiatsu reach out for Byakuya's languid flames of luminous white, he _saw_ them intertwine, and unable to restrain himself he leaned forward to feel Byakuya's heat, to inhale his scent.

Their lips met as though by accident, brushing gently, eyes closed. Renji reveled in Byakuya's warmth, in his closeness. This was not the impersonal, dismissive captain thought he knew. His lips parted in hesitant invitation and his heart thrilled to Byakuya's response. He felt Byakuya's gentle tongue feel the inside of his upper lip and heard a gasp escape him. Their tongues touched one another, their breath suddenly heavy and ragged, eager to inhale one another's essence.

Byakuya felt Renji's almost shy response to his kiss, and it was the very shyness which drove his excitement to an almost painful level. He wanted to feel Renji like he hadn't felt another person in decades. Byakuya's hands slid up Renji's wrists in a tender caress, gliding up his arms and to his shoulders with unsuspected gentleness. His slender fingers stroked Renji's neck, felt his sensitive ears, with eyes still closed he explored Renji's neck, jaw line, hair.

Wild heat pooling at his center, Renji's eyes were closed as he felt, with wanton intensity, Byakuya's touch. His mind's eye _saw_ their energies intertwined, the red and white resembling sakura blossomse at the interface. With the last rational corner of his mind he came to realize that his reiatsu was coaxed past the defensive boundaries of his gigai, that he was in deep communion with Byakuya, his hands were on Byakuya's waist and that Byakuya was…intoxicatingly beautiful.

"Byakuya…please…" The rasp of Renji's voice fell on Byakuya's ears like warm summer rain, and he shivered as he gently pushed his fukutaichou on his back.

Renji felt himself falling back. Hands he trusted were untying the obi of his yukata and yet he grasped them, stilling their movement. He met the heated gray eyes.

"Byakuya…stop…"

He felt a firm, warm body slide up his side and lean over him. Soft black hair tickled his neck, his cheek. Wide grey eyes, deep and enticing, met his own.

"Yes, Renji." The voice uttering his name was full of sensuous promise.

Renji glanced away from those deep, grey eyes.

"Uh…I just…" Renji's whole face flushed a deep shade. "I've never…never…"

Byakuya was charmed at the sight of his fukutaichou at loss for words.

"Mmm, Renji."

Renji met his eyes again, hard. Defensive. Sure of rejection. "I've never been with a man before."

Byakuya leaned in with a gentle kiss. "I have. Long, long time ago.

He looked at Renji thoughtfully. "What do you wish to do?"

Renji ran his hands through the silken, black hair and sat up to meet the eager mouth in a passionate, demanding kiss. He broke away. "I don't want to stop, but…"

His eyes closed in pleasure as he felt Byakuya's soothing reiatsu envelop him.

"Just relax and enjoy."

Their lips grazed and nuzzled with single-minded heat, their tongues explored. Renji felt the moist, soft lips quest down his jaw, his neckline. He felt teeth close on the sensitive skin on his neck, a kiss to soften the sensation, a gentle suction. As Renji's ample hands feathered over the pale skin, he felt strong, graceful hands run down his shoulders, his chest. Their warmth caressed his belly and thighs in an act of gentle exploration. He felt those soft, full lips kiss hiss navel, slowly grazed to the place where his hip jutted out, touched the very tip of his aroused length. Renji gasped as Byakuya ran his tongue from root to tip and then engulfed him in the moist heat of his mouth.

As his tongue circled around Renji's smooth head and drew his lips up and down in a gentle rhythm, he felt strong fingers run through his hair and gasped in pleasure at the sensation. Not much longer the fingers tightened in warning, there was an uncontrollable swell of tension in Renji's body and his slim hips arched off the floor.

"Byakuya!"

At the sound of his name torn out of Renji's throat he felt the spicy, slightly bittersweet essence of Renji flood his mouth in a wave of rapturous release. His reiatsu flared upredictably and he saw their combined energies flare around them in a wild blaze of color.

Even before Byakuya had a chance to swallow, he felt much of that combined reiatsu sink into the very core of his being.

Renji felt Byakuya's weight on his chest, his strong, pale arms framing Renji's face and his soft lips brushing his. Renji stroked the back of Byakuya's neck gently as he kissed him back, tasting himself for the first time.

"Byakuya." His voice was soft, full of wonder. "Thank you."

Byakuya touched noses with him. "No, Renji. I thank you. Our energies have been…equalized." A corner of his mouth tugged up as he buried his hands in Renji's generous mane of long, red hair.

"At least now we know how to get your reiatsu out of your gigai."

Renji rolled over and reached for Byakuya's aching arousal just as they heard a knock on the door.

"Dinner is served."

Their eyes met. Renji pulled Byakuya's shoulders in for a tight embrace. "I so am sorry. The timing couldn't be worse." He grinned. "We could skip dinner."

Byakuya extricated himself delicately. "We cannot. We have social obligations tonight." Suddenly it sounded so much like home; his desire being thwarted by the unending stream of other people's wants and needs. The lively gleam in his eyes dulled to his customary slate gray. Renji's heart ached at the sight of it. His callused fingers stroked Byakuya's jawline, marveling at his fine features, his smooth pale skin.

"Oh no. I virtually guarantee dessert will be served after dinner."

"I don't like sweets," Byakuya reminded.

"Then I'll make sure to make it spicy."

XXXXXX

Nariko's cooking was good. Once the dishes were cleared, she brought more tea.

"Now, Kuchiki-sama, I have heard what you did for my niece, Yumiko. I hate to ask…but do you think you could have a look at my knee?"

Byakuya's impassive mask was in place as he bent over the woman's swollen joint. He barely touched her, a green glow lit his hands and in not too long the swelling subsided. Nariko bowed profusely. "I haven't felt that knee like that for years. Decades, even."

There was a knock on the door and Nariko excused herself, only to let a group of older ladies in. Her relatives and friends, who brought their relatives, and their friends. All of them heard of the incredible, healing powers of Kuchiki-sama, and all of them wondered if he would be, perhaps, so kind as to help them as well.

Never had Renji been more impressed with his captain's impassive mask. He would incline his head graciously, beckon the next lady to approach him as though granting audience, and applied his talented hands and his reiatsu to the ailment in question.

Halfway through his eyes met Renji's.

_Help._

Unable to say no to their kind hostess, unwilling to show weakness, Byakuya was exhausting every bit of his reserves.

_If I can only mesh with him just-so…_

Renji stood behind Byakuya, his hands on his shoulders. He closed his eyes, centered himself, and extended his reiatsu to the very edge of his gigai. And now, if this will work…

_Soft black hair between his fingers, soft lips on his own. The scent of green tea…of his skin… Warm, grey eyes. _

Renji could feel a stirring in his groin.

_Slim, long fingers entwined in his hair, tugging gently. Warm, moist breath against his neck. A tongue-tip under his ear._

Renji's closed eyes almost rolled at the memory and he worked hard to keep his breathing even as not to attract any undue attention. He reached for Byakuya with his heart and his mind's eye could _see_ the bright flames of his own energy escape his gigai and join the fireball of white.

"Take all you need," Renji murmured in a quiet voice and Byakuya leaned back a little, brushing his head against Renji's legs in acknowledgement.

Renji felt a gentle, more controlled joining than before and his focus never wavered. He stood there, centered, breathing, giving.

"Renji. That's enough." Byakuya's last patient bowed gratefully and left. He felt the warm hands leave his shoulders and the air around him stirred as Renji dropped to sit on his knees.

Nariko was thanking them over and over, but they hardly head her.

"We really should go to sleep," Byakuya said calmly.

"Yeah. I'm exhausted." Renji barely managed not to slip in a swear-word, and flashed the woman a weak grin.

Renji followed Byakuya to their room, keenly aware of his lumbering step and how graceless it must seem in comparison to his captain's easy glide.

As soon as the door of their room was closed, Renji saw Byakuya's knees give and his body fall gracefully into a haphazard seiza.

"Hey." Renji touched his shoulders again, bracing himself not to fall next to his captain. "How many people did you do?"

"Too many," Byakuya replied, his voice a mere whisper. "I lost count." He turned to Renji.  
"I thank you."

Renji didn't reply as he pushed their futons together. Byakuya didn't even raise an eyebrow.

"C'mon, Kuchiki. We need to sleep."

Byakuya used the last of his strength to stand up.

"Renji." His eyes were closed. "Undress me."

With a tired smile at the command, Renji removed Byakuya's cashmere sweater and gray shirt and gray trousers, and socks, and his fundoshi, and he laid him down to sleep. Then he undressed himself and slipped under the covers, spooning the slighter man. It felt so good to wrap his arms around his chest, to feel the curvature of his spine against his belly, his firm buttocks against his thighs. Byakuya's eyes closed and his breathing evened out as he fell asleep. Renji propped himself on his elbow so he could watch the stern, impassive brow relax, the firm mouth relax into a softer line. As Renji bent to kiss Byakuya's temple, he smiled a goofy, incredulous smile. He inhaled the scent of this fascinating, complex man who kept his impassive mask of dignity, but kept healing old-age ailments of strangers all night long.

_I love you, Byakuya. I think. I am pretty sure. _


	9. Chapter 9

_**A bit of angst and ambivalence in this chapter. It was bound to happen. Thank you all for nice messages and reviews, and for reading even if you don't comment! **_

_**Warning: this is a yaoi lemon chapter.**_

_Bleach world and characters belong to Tite Kubo._

**CHAPTER 9**

Grey eyes opened to see a strange ceiling, strange walls. There was warmth and pressure on his chest; an arm. His leg was pinned by another, heavier one. Byakuya turned his head to see his black hair entangled with the crimson silk tresses of his fukutaichou.

He took this rare opportunity to observe Abarai Renji's face utterly relaxed, shut eyelids weighed down by long eyelashes. The tattoos above his eyebrows seemed asleep as well, unanimated by anger or joy. Lips, full and soft, relaxed in repose.

Byakuya suddenly felt out of his depth. Unjustifiable, inappropriate relationship threatened to develop. His duty to the clan, to the 6th division…how would they work together after this? Renji could have any man, any woman he wanted. Byakuya had no interest in a fleeting liaison. His old lovers were all dead. His wife was dead. Friends have move to the World of the Living, or moved on with their busy careers. Renji was sure to leave, too. Only pain was to follow. Perhaps he shouldn't have yielded to the demands of his body yesterday. In fact, it was a certain and unfortunate error. A disastrous mistake, a result of a kido experiment which may even cost him Renji's company. A transfer may be necessary. Distraught, Byakuya carefully extricated himself from underneath his fukutaichou's warm limbs. Best he get dressed and organize his thoughts…

"Don't go…" Renji's voice was sleepy, but his arm was strong on his wrist.

"Abarai." Byakuya stiffened, not quite standing yet.

He felt the strong arm pull him off balance and he fell back into Renji's warm embrace. Renji turned over to pin Byakuya beneath him, his eyes still almost closed.

"Byakuya…." His voice was soft, savoring every syllable. "I promised you dessert last night."

The readhead leaned toward him, brushing his lips against his own. He turned his head out of reach of that soft, hungry mouth.

"Abarai-fukutaichou. This is hardly appropriate."

"Hmm." Renji buried his face into the soft, black hair and nuzzled his way to the sensitive ear. "If you'd have me go back on a promise, I'd be really hurt, y'know." His voice was low and husky. The warm breath against Byakuya's ear, the hot tongue exploring the soft skin of the neck underneath it, sent a tremor down Byakuya's legs and he felt heat pool at his groin.

Renji allowed his weight to rest on top of the slighter man, arms tangled in an embrace, his hard heat pressed against Byakuya's hip.

"I love the way you smell." Renji nipped Byakuya's neck and felt his breath hitch in response. "I love the way you taste." Renji's tongue, teeth, lips danced slowly on Byakuya's throat and shoulder.

Renji lifted himself up on his arms, giving the other ample opportunity to escape. Their eyes locked; Renji saw thinly veiled desire behind Byakuya's crumbling mask. Byakuya remained still. No response, but no rejection either. Encouraged, Renji met his captain's lips, his kiss firm and demanding. His tongue flicked the corner of the soft mouth, full lips nipped at the narrow ones. Noses touched, and as Renji stirred, Byakuya stirred underneath him and their aroused shafts met. A slight, quiet whimper escaped the stern lips and Renji ground his hips again, wanting to hear that enticing sound over and over. The soft, hard heat sought friction and Byakuya pulled Renji down, his eyes hungry with want.

"Renji…" The name was music on his lips.

Not experienced, perhaps, but eager to please and eager to learn, Renji lowered his mouth to his lover's chest and gently grazed his lips over his nipples, down his abdomen, kissing his navel and trailing into a shock of smooth, black hair. He caressed Byakuya's silken, hard length and felt Byakuya arch his hips into his hand. Their eyes met.

Byakuya saw Renji hesitate, then with determination used to master a new sword technique he saw his head dip low, face obscured by a waterfall of crimson hair and after that, all he could do was feel.

Feel Renji's lips kiss his tip, feel Renji's tongue run from root to tip and circle his girth, feel Renji's full lips envelop his head and slowly plunge down, as low as he could and then, slowly, back up again. And Byakuya realized Renji was copying, step by step, exactly what was done to him on the previous night.

Renji heard a ragged moan, and a whisper of his name, he felt slender hands plunge into his mane of red hair. Slim, strong fingers wrapped in the silken strands and Renji felt the occasional, delicious tug as his head moved up and down in a sensuous rhythm. Then there was a sudden engorgement, a tension in Byakuya's legs and an arch in his back, a choked whisper of warning and Renji's mouth was flooded with his essence, bitter and musky and sweet all at once.

Byakuya's toes curled and his eyes rolled in the back of his head as his pleasure crested. His hands loosened their hold on Renji's hair and he stroked it, his heart filled with hopeless longing for more, for a sense of permanent bliss he knew he would be denied. He didn't deserve this. His lifestyle did not allow this. This was a…lucky aberration. He shouldn't hope for more.

He felt Renji lift himself up on his elbows, scrutinizing his face, concern written plainly in his features.

"Was that…was that good for you?" Renji's voice, usually given to boasting, was shy and his cheeks were faintly flushed. "Seein' as I've never done this before…?"

Byakuya's hands grasped Renji's shoulders and brought him up into a tight embrace. If he knew how, Byakuya would have cried just then but being Byakuya, all he could do was kiss his suddenly vulnerable fukutaichou and try to banish the dark clouds from his own eyes.

"It was better than just good, Renji."

_It was incredible._

They stayed that way for some time; both suffering a silent fear that the other would walk away and never look back, both not daring to hope that this would be more than just a one-time thing. Both feeling vulnerable and undeserving of the other, more beautiful, more admirable man. Both holding the other in a tight embrace like this was their last time together.

XXXXXXX

The truck slowed down again, yielding to the ebb and flow of traffic and rain. As Yoshie promised, her husband Matsu stopped at the inn right before lunch to pick them up. Nariko served noodles to her brother-in-law and her two mysterious guests.

"My knee still feels like new, Kuchiki-sama." She beamed. "You did so much good last night. I don't know how to thank you." She turned to Renji. "And you, Abarai-san. You helped too." Nariko bowed in Renji's direction, eliciting faint reddening of his cheeks.

"I've never heard of a yakuza boss who could heal," Matsu said, his bowl empty. "Karakura gangs are fortunate. Your men must be very loyal to you."

The stern, stone-carved Kuchiki demeanor did not waver despite eddies of alarmed confusion underneath.

"My men are capable and loyal," Byakuya allowed. Better a wrong impression than revealing that the kind Nariko hosted two death-gods under her roof.

"I see." Matsu's interest peaked. "And do all of them share your healing abilities?"

Byakuya paused. How to tell the truth and not reveal a whole lot. Renji chortled at the thought of his fellow 6th division men in the role of 4th division healers. Maybe a few…but not most, certainly.

"Ne, Kuchiki-san has exceptional control. Guys like me just blow things up."

Byakuya froze on the inside as Matsu and Nariko exchanged knowing looks.

Matsu switched playlists on his MP3 player. The music was soothing, reflecting the rain and the grey skies, in better harmony with the heavy rain clouds in Byakuya's eyes. They sat in stiff silence.

Matsu was clear no more yakuza business would be discussed. He ached for information. If this curious man, Kuchiki-sama, expanded from Karakura and took over his company and his town, it would be a turn for the better as compared to the current "benevolent brotherhood" administration. Men who will heal others cannot be as bad as those currently in place; even shootings with smuggled guns have occurred of late.

His thoughts turned to the call he placed to his boss before they hit the road. His boss would talk to the owner, see if the Karakura brotherhood was strong enough to expand. It may take a few years…but he would be happy to switch allegiances.

Byakuya sat straight, trying to discourage any but the most necessary contact with the fukutaichou seated on his left and the driver seated on his right. His mind was firm with resolve. Abarai-fukutaichou and he will resume their strictly professional relationship. For the good of the whole division. Besides, Abarai deserved better. Divisional and clan duties certainly did not make Kuchiki Byakuya a suitable…companion. As soon as Abarai got established in a new relationship, Byakuya could breathe a sigh of relief. Gone and happy, instead of another lover gone and dead. Byakuya suppressed a painful pang of regret which threatened to unravel his tightly leashed reiatsu. The regret would pass. Just like grief. He knew that from experience.

Renji closed his eyes against the dim light. Kuchiki-taichou's words resounded in his mind.

"_The events here at the inn…were forced by unusual circumstance. Kido, reiatsu manipulations, can sometimes do that. We are to resume our strictly professional relationship, Abarai-fukutaichou."_

Renji didn't bother to conceal the hurt in his eyes and was satisfied to see Kuchiki-taichou turn away from the sight. So all of this meant nothing? The closeness, the sense of deep communion, the shared experiences were of no significance whatsoever?

He was being rejected. His mind searched for the reason, the true reason. Not the best interest of the 6th division – that was but a foil. Was it his low birth? His brashness? Is inexperience as a lover? His curious inability to control his reiatsu?

A hollow empty feeling in his chest brought him back to Inuzuri, when he and Rukia buried yet another childhood friend…back to Rukia's execution, when despite his efforts he was powerless to stop it. Every time a shinigami he knew and liked fell in the line of duty, that feeling was there. Grief. His eyes remained closed, and the road noise and the movement of the truck helped him shut the world out all the way to Yokohama.

XXXXXXX

Byakuya stood with their skateboards as Renji negotiated the purchase of their train tickets and proper directions to the right platform. The traffic began to thicken in the early afternoon and the train promised to be full, but Byakuya didn't care. The temporary inconvenience served to get him back to Urahara Shoten, out of this stifling gigai, and back to the Soul Society. His mind welcomed the promise of his regular schedule again.

Renji's eyes squinted against the bright light of the hall as he led them to a place where, standing on a painted line, they waited for the train to Karakura. They were early enough to get seats. Kuchiki would have hoped for seats separate from his fukutaichou, but their options were limited as the train already had a number of passengers. He slid toward the window, making space for Renji. Renji stowed their backpacks and skateboards in the overhead bin and, responding to the warm air of the train, he removed his red leather jacket. Underneath, Byakuya saw a garish, bright-yellow sweatshirt, emblazoned with the purple logo of the Komamura Truck Driver Association. The shirt was well worn and bore a few splashes of paint.

"Abarai."

"Hai, taichou."

"The garment you are wearing."

"Mutsu's old shirt? Nariko gave it to me."  
"Why not wear the sweater?" Byakuya knew he shouldn't have cared, but that cashmere sweater looked good on Renji.

Renji scrutinized the fabric of the seat ahead of him, avoiding his captain's level, penetrating gaze.

"Well…taichou…we were really low on money, and seeing as we were so close, it didn't make sense to be stuck in Yokohama, gambling and staying overnight." Renji paused.

"I see."

"I…ehm…I sold the sweater to Nariko-san, a gift for her husband. He drives a truck, too. She gave me her husband's old sweatshirt along with the money so I wouldn't be cold."

Renji's eyes met Byakuya's, and Byakuya realized that Renji was squinting away from the fluorescent lighting of the train compartment. A thought struck him.

"Abarai-fukutaichou. Where are your sunglasses?"

"Ah…Nariko-san gave me a fair price for them. Her son was coveting the design for a long time, but couldn't afford it. He's a student…no job yet."

Byakuya sat in stunned silence. He was fully aware of Renji's fascination with sunglasses and noted the high prices of his designer models. It must have taken months of his wages to be able to afford a pair like the one he traded for his one-way train ticket to Karakura.

"Abarai…"

Renji's tone was cold and dismissive, the pain of earlier rejection an open wound.

"It is my duty to keep my captain safe and comfortable in this world, Kuchiki-taichou." _And I'll do anything to fulfill that._

"Thank you, Abarai-fukutaichou. Next time, consult with me first."

"Hai, taichou." Renji's eyes closed, his voice clipped and reiatsu leashed in, the wound in his soul threatening to bring tears to his eyes. No way would he ask his captain for help in carrying out his duties. Not when he's not deemed good enough for who he is.

Both distraught, they failed to notice a group of men in leather jackets who boarded right before the train closed. They stood wedged by the door, scanning the crowd from behind their sunglasses. They came to rest on the distinct visage of Abarai Renji, his red hair tied up, his tattooed forehead smooth in repose. And the black-haired guy next to him, the new charismatic leader. Their competition. Somebody to follow and eliminate.


	10. Chapter 10

_**Here it is, the last chapter of "Comfort and Safety"! I'm releasing it a day or two earlier than intended as a special thank you to one of my reviewers who sort of figured it all out…you know who you are **___

_Disclaimer: Bleach world and characters belong to Tite Kubo._

**CHAPTER 10**

Their train arrived at Karakura at midnight. They made their way through the station, navigating by familiar signs and landmarks to exit on the only street they knew well enough. No sense getting lost after dark. This necessitated several small detours, and those detours made it somewhat obvious they had company. Renji noticed first.

"Kuchiki-taichou," he intoned in a low, formal voice. "Don't turn around, but we are being followed."

Byakuya stopped to look inside a store window selling watches and jewelry. The reflection in the large glass made their leather-clad tail obvious, their eyes hiding behind shades.

"Let's not pick up my stuff from the storage locker right now," Renji said, giving his captain a crooked grin as though their conversation was about something else entirely.

"Agreed." Byakuya walked on, Renji followed. They rode up the moving escalator. The tayaki stand on the surface was now dark and closed. Only street lights lit the area.

"Let's lose them," Renji said, dropping his skateboard on the pavement. Byakuya rose his eyebrow and did the same.

They rode faster than their pursuers could run, barely avoiding sidewalk cracks and drainage gratings. Outside the business district, lighting was dimmer and they had to dismount.

"That oughta do it," Renji said, his adrenaline high. He reached for Zabimaru, only to realize his zanpaktou was unattainable in his current form. A familiar, comforting presence stirred in the back of his mind.

They were so close – close enough that even Byakuya began to recognize the streets around Urahara Shoten when a dark, breathless shape appeared before them, a small metal object in his hand.

"Stay where you are."

Byakuya's eyes discerned one of their leather-clad followers. Renji turned back to back with him; assuming their customary combat position was strangely automatic.

"Four more," Renji said. "Watch out, taichou. They have guns."

"Guns?" Byakuya asked quietly.

"Long-range projectile weapons. Bad for gigai."

"I see."  
Byakuya said no more, but Renji felt his reiatsu gather and pulse like a beacon.

Their leader stepped up and addressed Byakuya to his back. "Kuchiki-sama. I am Murasaki Aio of the Dragon Claw Benevolent Brotherhood. Who do you represent?"

Kuchiki Byakuya turned about to face Murasaki.

"My affiliation is of no consequence to you." His voice was chilled like the winter wind and the currents of his reiatsu stirred the air, displacing the dry leaves nearby. Renji reoriented himself to keep one eye on the man facing his captain's back.

"It has become of consequence to us. Join the Dragon Claw or die."

Byakuya paused in consideration. "Who is your leader."

"You answer to me," Murasaki sneered, pulling a gun from under his jacket. Its chrome-plated barrel gleamed in the darkness. "I want to see your hands in the air. And I want to hear your answer right now."

Byakuya's hands rose gracefully before him, pale fingers describing a motion Renji knew well. His chill, glass-smooth voice resonated through the area.  
"Hado no. 48: Entangle." A cord of gold light snaked itself around Murasaki, his arms affixed to his trunk, his gun pointed at his right foot.

Murasaki smiled, unshaken, his finger off the trigger. His voice resounded. "It is as they said. But you are unarmed. Not much you can do against the five of us."

"I have no interest in competing with you," Byakuya said, his eyes as level and unyielding as his voice.

Time stood still.

Looking back, things happened too fast to plan or analyze. A gunshot sounded simultaneously with the flash of a kido blast; the other gunman fell, his weapon clattering to the ground. Renji noticed a movement behind them; the fifth gunman aimed. Renji took three swift steps to his left.

A split-second before he heard a gun report, Renji felt an impact to his chest and then time slowed down again and he was falling, falling as though floating on clouds down a mountain ravine, feeling the rush of the wind in his face and the bone-chilling, penetrating cold of the mountain air. He heard his name uttered by familiar lips and he kept falling still, not remembering to hit the ground. A nue screamed in the back of his mind and he reached for the familiar presence with what power was left him, disoriented by his weightlessness, paralyzed by bone-chilling cold. A thin voice resonated in is memory: _"You could die…" _

Byakuya heard the last shot and he felt rather than saw Renji fall. Urahara's words came to his mind in that infinitesimal split-second: in this type of a gigai, death would be the human, wait-to-be-reborn kind. In a sudden flash of inspiration he shed his gigai, drew Senbonzakura, and pressed its seal to Renji's forehead. Painfully, unwillingly, Renji's soul body began to separate, head first, from the damaged gigai and Byakuya grabbed Renji's emerging shihakusho and pulled.

He saw the yakuza members cautiously approach their fallen gigai and examine them. One of them took several pictures with his cell phone camera and they left them for dead, their mission accomplished.

Byakuya pulled some more; he felt Renji's reiatsu ebb away and, on an impulse, placed his hands over his fukutaichou's joined forms. The green glow stemmed some of the reiatsu bleed and he stayed there, hoping for Urahara to feel his exposed energies.

As though summoned by his thoughts, a figure in a striped green hat appeared next to him.

"Yare, yare…Let me see, what have we here." The shopkeeper's voice was grave. He lifted Renji's gigai and carried him bodily to the nearby shop, allowing Byakuya to keep up and maintain the stabilizing spiritual pressure.

"Let's settle him down and see what I can do."

XXXXXXX

"I'll lead the way, you follow!" Yoruichi's swift figure disappeared through the senkaimon gate, Byakuya with Renji's unconscious body on her heels. It felt like an old game of shunpo tag – where Renji's life, not Byakuya's dignity, hung in the balance.

They burst through the gate on the Seireitei side, almost knocking the startled guards over in their haste. Yoruichi Shinouin led on to the 4th division healing center, clearing their way. Byakuya was just a flash of black and white, his kenseikan gleaming in the sun and a splash of Renji's loose crimson hair twined in his wake with his pale silk scarf.

Byakuya sat by Renji's side, their reiatsu still intertwined. His posture was erect, his face relaxed, breathing meditative. A personification of calm to the outside observer, his emotions roiled under the surface. Those blood-red hair were pooled around Renji's head as, once again, his life slowly ebbed away. The emergency transfer to the Soul Society, with its high spirit particle concentration, was going to increase Renji's chances at survival but even so the sight reminded Kuchiki Byakuya of the fateful day when their swords crossed. He closed his eyes, hoping to hide his pain.

"Kuchiki-taichou. Abarai-kun was forcibly separated from his gigai, resulting in severe reiatsu loss. Had you not used your zanpaktou to free him, he would be dead by now." Her serene, placid voice belied the tremendous power she wielded. Unohana taichou felt her hand over Renji's chest and a small, surprised smile crossed her lips. "If you can do healing kido with us, you are welcome to stay… If you cannot, it is better you disengage and recover your energies at home."

Byakuya's eyes opened. They were the color of dark clouds before a storm: violent, volatile.

"I wish to stay."

He reached deep down for that steel-clad Kuchiki control. Few breaths to ground and center, few more to gather his reiatsu. With his gaze now calm like a surface of a mountain lake, he extended himself toward the weak tendrils of Renji's reiatsu which were still there, tremulously holding onto his own. White would become rose, rose would become flame red. Very slowly, gently he pushed power around, bolstering his fukutaichou while other healers worked to stabilize what still remained of Abarai Renji.

XXXXXXX

Days passed with Renji in the hands of the 4th division. His friends would visit, gaze at the still body, talk to him in encouraging voices before leaving to attend their duties. A rotation roster developed as though naturally: Ikkaku spelled by Yumichika, Hisagi replaced by Matsumoto, Kira reinforced by Ukitake-taichou. Rukia was escorted to see Renji only once. Her own powers still in need of regeneration, she gently placed her hand on his forehead. "Betcha you can beat me, baka. Betcha you'll get better soon. Renji, if you die I'll kill you."

Byakuya's duties at the 6th division were still partially spelled by the 8th and the 13th divisions' seated officers. He spent his days training his recruits, writing reports, filling out forms. He found the Kuchiki manor too still with Rukia asleep most of the time. His captain's quarters at the 6th division were serviceable, but…empty. The whole building seemed too quiet, too orderly. Abarai Renji's abrupt arrivals and departures, his boisterous bravado, his crooked grin left gaping holes in Kuchiki Byakuya's day.

The silence gave him time enough for contemplation. As he wrote his extensive mission report, he reflected on the subtle changes in their mutual interaction which led to…to…

A drop of ink fell off his still brush, suspended in midair. The blotch on otherwise perfect sheet reminded him of Renji. That wild infusion of chaos in an otherwise orderly, predicable life. Frustrating. Maddening…enticing.

"I got you a cot to sleep on, Kuchiki-taichou." Hanatarou's slight figure slipped around Renji's bed as he deposited an extra pillow and blankets for the captain's use. "Since you keep falling asleep in that chair."

Byakuya's eyes widened. He didn't know anyone noticed.

"Try to get some sleep, Kuchiki-taichou. We don't need you here as a patient." Byakuya aimed his withering, cold glare at the short healer, but Hanatarou merely looked back at him, seemingly unaffected.

"If you need anything, just ring the gong."

Stretched out on the cot next to Renji's bed, Byakuya felt his fukutaichou slight, slowly stabilizing energy. He felt Renji's faint reiatsu tendrils seek him out as soon as he entered the room. He allowed the contact, letting his energy flow. This could have been him, lying here in bed unconscious and helpless. Both of them could have died, imprisoned in the newly experimental gigai, butchered by primitive projectile weapons of the living world. Renji's voice, tinged with the pain of Byakuya's rejection, carried to him on the breeze of his memory.

"_It is my duty to keep my captain safe and comfortable in this world, Kuchiki-taichou." _

_And it is the duty of a captain to take care of …you…, Renji._

XXXXXXX

Inhaling the steam of his morning tea, Byakuya heard a knock on his office door.

"Enter."

His eyes lifted in surprise. Urahara Kisuke and Tessai stepped into the 6th division office.

"Ah, good morning, Kuchiki-taichou! We thought we would deliver some of these items to you. And your living world clothing, of course."

Tessai dropped a large duffle bag on the floor. "Where do you want Abarai-san's things?"

Byakuya recognize the duffel bag immediately: a large satchel full of items purchased for the Shinigami Women's Association. He barely stopped himself from grimacing.

"I take it you found the key on Abarai-fukutaichou's gigai?"

Urahara smiled. "Abarai-kun will want these. Can Tessai put them in the storage closet?"

Tessai left on his errands while the two men sat on the low sofa, small cups of astringent, green liquid in their hands.

"The key is not all we found on Abarai-kun's gigai, Kuchiki-taichou." Urahara smiled and fanned his face lightly.

Byakuya kept still, inhaling the fragrance of tea.

"We found that both gigai were…marked."

"Oh?" Byakuya raised his impassive gaze.

"Both gigai bear light…bruises…on their necks. I would not normally mention it. However…I do not like my gigai to be returned to me in a damaged condition."

The shopkeeper pinned the captain with a penetrating gaze. "And I'd rather not see Abarai-kun hurt."

Only after Urahara took his leave, Byakuya allowed his memory to search for a source of several light bruises on the two gigai. They had no falls, engaged in no fights…Byakuya felt a slight flush creep up his neck and into his cheeks. Of course…the meditation exercise. And now Urahara knew.

Renji was propped against a fallen tree, the canopy of a tropical rainforest shielding him from the punishing sun. His eyes were closed as he soaked up the humid, midday heat. The nue stirred beside him.

"You should head back. Our reiatsu's strong enough."

"Yeah, lets go and do stuff, Renji," Snakey hissed. "This is boooo-ring!"

Renji's eyes opened. He tilted his head back and sighed.

"I don't know what to do."

""bout what, baka?"

"Kuchiki-taichou. Byakuya."

The nue snorted. "If he didn't like you, his reiatsu wouldn't be attached to yours half the time."

"He's just feeling obligated, is'all." Renji picked up a stick and drew wavy lines in the soil under his bare, tanned legs. "He said we can't be in a relationship. What else is there to say?"

"You have a choice. You can either stay here and wait for your muscles to atrophy in that hospital bed, or you can go out there and have some fun. Obviously, you are not escaping the problem by being here." Zabimaru's voice had a frustrated lilt to it.

"How am I gonna face him, though."

"With your old bravado and confidence. How else? We're in your corner."

"Yeah," Snakey chimed in. "We'll stick around and help you out."

Zabimaru chuckled. "We can even give you pointers on courting that cold bastard, if you decide to pursue him."

"Don't call him that," Renji snapped. The nue and Snakey exchanged knowing glances.

"OK, whatever. I still have a lot of friends. It's just…different with Byakuya. I can't even explain it."

"Then don't. Just follow your gut, like always," Zabimaru chimed in a deep chuckle as the jungle around Renji receded into darkness.

Renji opened his eyes, his nose picking up the enticing odor of hospital food. That alone told him how hungry he was. An unseated 4th division shinigami was at his bedside.

"Abarai-fukutaichou! Let me get Unohana-taichou!" He saw her black uniform disappear out the door.

Things happened fast after that.

"You will be released as soon as you feel strong enough to walk to your division and back unassisted, Abarai-fukutaichou." Unohana-taichou's eyes were gentle, her voice teasing.

The word spread and visitors streamed in. Matsumoto brought Renji real food. "Here, I know you cook. You probably can't stomach the bland stuff they serve here, Renji!" She put his bento on the side table and bent down to embrace him. "We were all so worried!"

"Rangiku, get off the poor man, you'll squish him to death," Ikkaku grinned from the door. He watched Renji eat, savoring each bite slowly.

"I miss sparring with you, dumbass. You better get out of that bed soon."

Hisagi came, and Yumichika, and Ukitake-taichou stopped by on his way from his own medical checkup.

"Abarai-kun." His warm, brown eyes met Renji's maroon ones with a kind smile. "So glad to have you back. How do you feel?"

Renji thought about that.

"Tired. And…incomplete, somehow. Although Zabimaru's been with me all along."

Ukitake looked at Renji searchingly.

"If you need to talk about anything, come right by. I always have time for your company, Abarai-kun."

"Kuchiki-taichou." Renji sat propped up with pillows, reading a book after another one of Matsumoto's bento dinners. He closed the book and put it away.

"Abarai-fukutaichou." Byakuya looked at his lieutenant with his impassive, level gaze. He was dressed as always, perfect black shihakusho with white haori, the pale silk scarf draped around his neck. A sign of his noble house leadership, the kenseikan gleamed in his shiny, raven-black hair. Yet there was a hint of warmth in those gray eyes, and Renji's heart harkened to it.

"I see you will be ready for duty soon," Byakuya said, suddenly uncomfortable.

"Looking forward to it, taichou," Renji said with a shadow of his old crooked grin.

An awkward silence filled the space between them. Byakuya broke it first.

"Abarai-fukutaichou…I came here to commend you for stepping in. I have never encountered those projectile weapons before."

Renji's jaw felt slack with shock. "Of course. Just doing my job, taichou. Anytime."

Byakuya's eyebrow rose slightly. "Anytime? I hope you don't make a habit of dying for me, Abarai."

The words spilled out unbidden, filling the space between the two just as Renji's weak reiatsu reached out to brush against Byakuya's. "This mission ain't over yet. After all, your safety and comfort are my responsibility, Kuchiki. Taichou."

There. He'd said it. Renji's warm eyes met his captain's hooded ones with a flash of a brazen challenge. Byakuya's been put on notice.

Byakuya reigned his reiatsu in tighter, not allowing the tendrils to entwine but, to Renji's delight, not leveling Renji with a blast of his oppressive power, either. His impassive eyes were betrayed by a tinge of regret in his voice:

"I see you are reading. It is time for me to leave, then." Seeing the Kuchiki heir's scarf flutter out the door, Renji wished he had the guts to ask him to stay.

"_Baka, should have asked him for a good-night kiss," _a voice in the back of his mind chuckled.

"Shut up, Zabimaru." Yet Renji still smiled, reaching back for "Meditations". Some old, long-dead human emperor wrote it. Odd name…Marcus Aurelius.

XXXXXX

Full week passed with Renji back to his duties. He worked in the office in the morning, led the recruits in sword drills in the afternoons, and in the evening he spent a bit of time on kido. He could still see the mysterious Gabriel's finely-lined face, feel his immense, well-controlled power. Now that he could actually _see_ power, he would no longer suck at kido. It would require lonely, hard work: as much as controlling Zabimaru and achieving bankai. Everything seemed to be…just fine. But only to those who didn't know Renji well.

"Why aintcha drinking, baka?" Ikkaku's rasp of a voice rose from across the table.

"Yeah, are you really healed up all the way?" Ranjiku asked over her cup of sake. "You just don't seem…I dunno."

Renji lifted his flat eyes to his friend. "Just missing your cooking, Ranjiku-san."

"Awww…but you look so sad, Renji." She sat right next to him. "You should talk to someone."

Ukitake-taichou offered his advice before. Ukitake-taichou was kindly and sensible. Ukitake-taichou was old…as old as the emperor who wrote "Meditations" was dead. Maybe so old he'd no longer understand. His current relationship spanned centuries. How could he possibly remember that fluttery feeling, the fear of rejection, the pain of unrequited love? The topic of discussion needed to be handled in the strictest of confidence, and the result would be a detailed strategic analysis and a plan of action.

"Yeah, maybe I should." Renji's garnet eyes sought out the intelligent, violet orbs at the far side of the table. He was never particularly close to Yumichika – but Ayasegawa Yumichika, 11th division tough and idiosyncratic 5th seat, would _know_ just what to do.


	11. Chapter 11

_**Greetings to all!**_

_**Thank you for hanging there with me through my first-ever fanfiction, my first-ever lemon, my first-ever learning how to use this website. **_

_**I'd like to extend special thanks to Rii no Ame for being my beta, to the group on LJ who previewed this fic and encouraged me to share it with the world, and also to all of you who were kind enough to send me comments, PMs, and reviews,**_

_**There is a sequel! It's all written up and as put on the finishing touches, I'll be releasing it over the next 2 weeks. Renji decides to pursue Byakuya. He's a man of action, after all.**_

_**The name of the sequel is "Strategy and Tactics".**_

_**Good night,**_

_**Ichibanseiken**_


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